A federal judge on Aug. 6 tossed a lawsuit from a consumer who sued Kroger after learning their “farm fresh eggs” came from hens that live in cages and do not go outside.
Adam Sorkin, the consumer, said in his lawsuit that “farm fresh” gives people the impression the eggs they’re buying were produced by chickens living a natural farm life. He said he paid a premium to buy the eggs because he was under that impression.
When Sorkin found out the hens laying the eggs are kept in small cages indoors, he filed the lawsuit.
“Defendant knew ‘farm fresh’ would mislead its customers to think the eggs were produced by hens not confined in cages, but on farms, as consumers understand the word ‘farm,’” his complaint stated.
Kroger lawyers noted that the packaging does not say the eggs are produced by chickens living a natural life.
“Mr. Sorkin makes this implausible claim based, rather, on one statement: ‘Farm Fresh Eggs.’ But this says nothing about a hens living a ‘natural life’ (whatever that means) or hens wandering the pastures. Farm Fresh means what it says: they arrived fresh (as in recently) from a farm (as in where the hens lay the eggs),” they said in a motion to dismiss.
Kocoras ruled for Kroger, finding that Sorkin did not allege a deceptive act violative of the Illinois consumer fraud law.
“The key issue is what ‘farm fresh’ means to a reasonable consumer. Sorkin contends the label deceptively conveys to consumers that the eggs came from a farm where the ‘hens [were] living a natural life ... pecking and playing in the fields,’ ‘with access to open green space to run around and engage in natural hen behaviors like pecking and dusting themselves on the ground,’ and were ‘not confined in cages,’” the judge wrote. “But the term ‘farm fresh’ does not say or suggest anything about whether the eggs came from a hen that was caged or not. Sorkin is attempting to ‘impute meaning that is not fairly derived from the labeling itself.’”
While Sorkin referenced a study that found about four-in-10 Kroger shoppers thought “farm fresh” equated to cage free, “the complaint fails to support a reasonable inference that a majority of reasonable consumers would be misled to believe that a statement not referencing the living conditions of the hens implicitly guarantees that the hens that produced the eggs were living on some sort of idyllic farm with a red barn, an abundance of hay, and hens frolicking in elysian green pastures,” the judge added.
The ruling means the case is dismissed, but the decision may be appealed to a federal circuit court.
Lawyers for the parties did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
