Nutella loses $3.5million lawsuit - Page 14

On April 28 2012 08:38 rotinegg wrote:
http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/the-exchange/today-food-finance-nutella-not-broccoli-162956191.html

So basically, Ferrero, the company that makes Nutella, got sued by some woman named Athena Hohenberg, because she was an idiot and thought Nutella would be HEALTHY for her children. Turns out, it's not (surprise surprise) and she filed a lawsuit claiming false advertising. She won the case, and Ferrero has to shell out $3.5 million, 2.5 of which will be spread out to claimants in a class action lawsuit.

I think this is retarded, and sometimes I really hate the people we live with. Thoughts?

On April 28 2012 10:22 DavidHolmes wrote:
I hate to make my first post on TL for something as silly as this, but the state of this thread is agonizingly bad. Half of the posts completely misunderstand and/or misrepresent this story, and most of the rest are just taking for granted that they're correct. Around 5% of the posts are pointing out reality, and most people are ignoring them.

This woman did not win $3.5 million from Nutella. In fact, that $3.5 million number is probably an outright error; every source except the one the OP links seems to say it was $3.05 million.

She also did not win $2.5 million. She did not win $1 million. She probably didn't even win enough to pay the gas money she would have needed to fight this case, nor did anybody else. Nobody won millions of dollars, or even noteworthy amounts of money except the lawyers, who probably recieved $0.55 million. The rest of the money goes in tiny amounts to anybody who bought a jar of Nutella.

This is a CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT, which means that Nutella was accused of misrepresenting their product to a very large number of people and therefore that very large number of people is entitled to very small damages reflecting that. All anybody won was an amount of money not even in the ballpark of what they paid for the product, because that's basically what this was about: people being entitled to their money back. Which they're not really getting: the settlement is apparently up to $4 if you bought five jars of Nutella, so 80 cents per jar at best $4 per jar of Nutella, up to $20 for five (sorry about the original error).

I'm not going to say the settlement was right. If nothing else, the fact that so much of the money goes to lawyers suggests to me that it's wrong.

But it's absurd to suggest that this woman did anything out of greed, because there's no way she, or the other claimants, or anybody except the people on the internet misrepresenting this case would ever make any money worth mentioning. The only people making money are the lawyers. Which may be wrong, but it's not the situation everybody here is claiming it is.

See also: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/26/nutella-lawsuit_n_1457183.html?ref=food

EDIT:
The real deal: https://nutellaclassactionsettlement.com/Home.aspx

Sorry about the errors. I actually don't know how much the lawyers got, and it looks like that whole $3 million number goes to claimants. The basic gist was correct, though - sueing Nutella was not a "get rich quick" scheme for anybody.

On April 28 2012 08:50 Marti wrote:

Edit : i don't think this happens only in the us, i'm pretty sure the laws regarding false advertisment are somewhat similar in other western countries.

On April 28 2012 13:53 Chunhyang wrote:
Please. Put this in the OP.

The woman isn't in it for the money. No one is.

On October 04 2008 17:43 Hot_Bid wrote:
hehe the thing about punitive damages are that people just see the number and don't fully understand the significance.

for example there are a lot of misguided opinions on the McDonald's coffee case (i'm sure many of you have heard of it), where a woman spilled McDonald's coffee on herself, got burned, and sued. She was awarded $3 million by the jury (later reduced to 600k). everywhere around the country you could hear the people groaning about how this was ridiculously unfair and stupid that someone could get that much money from a coffee spill.

some real facts about the situation may change your mind:

1. the woman offered to settle with mcdonalds for 20k (roughly the cost of her medical bills) but mcdonalds refused, so they went to trial (where the cost of just hiring lawyers and experts turned out to be much more than 20k)

2. the coffee wasn't just hot, it was scalding and superheated, to the point where she received burns over 6% of her body. the doctors said these were the worst burns they've ever seen from a liquid before. she had to have skin grafts to replace all the lost tissue and she also had severe muscle burns; the coffee literally melted some of her flesh off her thigh bones.

3. in the previous 10 years, McDonalds had over 700 claims of people being burned from their coffee, signaling that the company knew about the problem and didn't correct it

4. not only did they not correct the issue, but McDonald's actively had a policy to keep their coffee pots at 190 degrees, 50 more than the average hot cup of coffee. this was because McDonalds tested its coffee and realized that the scalding temperature masks the coffee's horrendous taste, so they overheated all their coffee without taking into consideration the safety hazard.

5. thermodynamics experts testified that the average cup of hot coffee burns skin exponentially less seriously; the threshold temperature is roughly 180 degrees for liquids to cause a full thickness burn

6. $2.7 million in punitive damages was the exact amount of two days worth of coffee profits from McDonald's restaurants

it boggles the mind how people can feel that "lawsuits are getting out of hand" and that its "ridiculously unfair" that a corporation that disregards safety and harms the public should be punished less for maliciously, knowingly, and actively creating a hazardous product.

only by hitting them with a large fine can we actually change their behavior, because otherwise they can just pay the small lawsuits and do a cost/benefit analysis on whats worth more: scalding coffee and paying a few burn victims or keeping their coffee at 150 degrees. we don't want companies to do this, it'd be horrible. we want them to actually be concerned about public safety, not just write it in as just another expense like napkins.

so yeah, before you go around saying omfg slip and fall he makes millions by suing, what ridiculousness! think about who you're defending.

On April 28 2012 14:07 ahw wrote:
I still don't get why nutella is being labelled with "omg false advertising"... here's a milk commercial from up here in canada:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwB4DbKWrhU

edit: i'm not saying theres anything wrong with milk. i'm saying the advertising is similar in that collectivity consumers think milk is healthy, despite it being high in sugar and fat (much like nutella).

On April 28 2012 14:45 teknotrance wrote:
ok. this is why business owners outsources because of stupid americans. I mean seriously, they sue whatever they see fit. Mcdonalds, and now this one? really? REALLY? i live in the u.s, but THANK GOD i dont have american genes.

On April 28 2012 14:45 teknotrance wrote:
ok. this is why business owners outsources because of stupid americans. I mean seriously, they sue whatever they see fit. Mcdonalds, and now this one? really? REALLY? i live in the u.s, but THANK GOD i dont have american genes.