In Buckland v. Threshold Enterprises, Ltd., ___ Cal.App.4th ___ (Sept. 25, 2007), the plaintiff purchased the defendant's products, suspecting that their packaging contained false and misleading advertising, for no reason other than to facilitate a potential lawsuit. The Court of Appeal (Second Appellate District, Division Four) held that the trial court properly sustained the defendant's demurrer to the plaintiff's fraud, CLRA, and UCL claims. The fraud claim failed because the plaintiff could not plead actual reliance. Instead of relying on the truth of the representations, she suspected they were false, negating any showing of actual reliance. Slip op. at 6-9. The CLRA claim failed for the same reason. Id. at 9-13. (Part of the CLRA discussion relied on McAdams v. Monier, Inc., 151 Cal.App.4th 667 (2007), even though the Supreme Court had granted review in that case the week before. Slip op. at 12-13. The opinion may need to be modified to omit that discussion.)
The UCL claim failed for lack of post-Prop. 64 standing. Id. at 13-24. Buckland is the first decision to address Prop. 64's preamble language stating that the intiative was intended "to prohibit private attorneys from filing lawsuits for unfair competition where they have no client who has been injured in fact under the standing requirements of the United States Constitution." Prop. 64 §1(e) (quoted in Buckland, slip op. at 17 (emphasis in original)). The opinion addresses "injury in fact" in a separate section from "lost money or property." The discussion of standing is quite detailed and worth reading.
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