In Hill v. Roll International Corp., 195 Cal.App.4th 1295 (May 26, 2011), the Court of Appeal (First Appellate District, Division Two) held as a matter of law that "no reasonable consumer would be misled to think that the green drop on Fiji water represents a third party organization's endorsement or that Fiji water is environmentally superior to that of the competition." Id., slip op at 5 (emphasis in original).
The Court discussed the "reasonable consumer" standard in some detail (id. at 8-10), and concluded that "in these days of inevitable and readily available Internet criticism and suspicion of virtually any corporate enterprise, ... a reasonable consumer ... does not include one who is overly suspicious." Id. at 9.
The Court also held that Kwikset did not dictate a contrary result:
We agree wholeheartedly that “labels matter,” all labels, including that here. Defendants obviously put the green drop on the label for a purpose, as their counsel had to necessarily concede at oral argument: that the green drop was for a “marketing” purpose, to signify “something to do with the environment.” Such concession notwithstanding, we hold—and it is all we hold—that no reasonable consumer would be misled to think that the green drop represents a third party organization’s endorsement or that Fiji water is environmentally superior to that of the competition.
Id. at 12.
Accordingly, the Court affirmed the judgment of dismissal following the trial court's order sustaining the defendant's demurrer to the UCL, FAL, and CLRA claims without leave to amend.
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