Mike Morgan
PHILADELPHIA – The ambitious lawsuit comparing ultra-processed foods to tobacco shouldn’t move forward, a Philadelphia federal judge has ruled in rejecting legal claims made by the nation’s largest personal injury firm.
Judge Mia Roberts Perez on Aug. 25 tossed the case at an early stage, granting the motion to dismiss of companies like Kraft Heinz, Coca-Cola and Conagra Brands. They were alleged to have marketed ultra-processed foods to young people despite putting their customers at risk of diabetes and other conditions.
Morgan & Morgan partner Mike Morgan said companies were “prioritizing profits over the health and safety” of customers. A 149-page complaint, the result of a year’s work at the firm, said tobacco companies Phillip Morris and RJ Reynolds bought major food companies in the 1980s and hoped to use the addiction playbook they’d used with cigarettes.
But Perez determined after holding oral arguments on Aug. 1 that the case can’t move forward.
“While the Court is deeply concerned about the practices used to create and market UPFs, and the deleterious effect UPFs have on children and the American diet, it cannot allow this action to proceed because Plaintiff has failed to state a claim upon which relief may be granted,” she wrote.
The plaintiff is Bryce Martinez of Bucks County, who was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease at 16. His lawyers blamed the diet allegedly forced on him by the food industry, and other firms noticed.
Dozens of other plaintiff firms created UPF pages on their websites and offered free consultations for clients willing to hire them on contingency fees.
But the lawsuit was “woefully deficient” in establishing a causal link between the food and illnesses, Perez wrote.
“Plaintiff does not allege how often he consumed Defendants’ products, in what amounts, or when,” she wrote. “Neither does he allege when he ate Defendants’ products in relation to when he received his diagnoses or even began experiencing symptoms.
“Indeed, the 668-paragraph complaint contains only one substantive fact about Plaintiff: he was 16 when he was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.”
Asked at oral argument for more, Martinez’s lawyers offered that he is now 19, lives in Philadelphia and is “just a normal kid who, unfortunately, has gotten sick…”
That sickness could have been caused by something else, Perez wrote. She says she needs more than just a possibility of causation, and it wouldn’t have hurt if Martinez could have at least identified what foods he ate.
Simply pointing at Old El Paso and Gerber brands wasn’t good enough. All totaled, they make at least 350 different products.
“By naming over 100 brands, Plaintiff has put thousands of products at issue without any additional information to identify which caused his harm. That is unacceptable,” Perez wrote.
The issue of ultra-processed foods has come up in cases around the country, including two over Girl Scout cookies, while two West Virginia in May announced a plan to file one of their own after launching the website type2lawsuit.com.
