In Davis v. HSBC Bank Nevada, N.A., ___ F.3d ___ (9th Cir. Aug. 31, 2012), the Ninth Circuit affirmed dismissal of UCL and FAL claims at the pleading stage:
Turning to the claims in the FAC, Davis first alleges that Best Buy’s advertising was misleading because it failed to disclose the existence of an annual fee. We agree with the district court that no reasonable consumer would have been deceived by these advertisements into thinking that no annual fee would be imposed.
Slip op. at 10377.
The opinion also addresses and applies the Cel-Tech "safe harbor." Id. at 10382-88. The last sections cover the UCL's "unlawful" prong (here, the "unlawful" prong claim was predicated, interestingly, on a federal regulation requiring national banks to comply with section 5 of the FTC Act) and the "unfair" prong (here, the court noted the three-way split but found the complaint stated no claim under any formulation). Id. at 10389-94.
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