Recent federal UCL decision: Doe v. Texaco, Inc.
Doe v. Texaco, Inc., 2006 WL 2053504 (N.D. Cal. Jul. 21, 2006) is interesting because it was decided ten days after Pfizer and three days before Mervyn's. There, the court (Judge Alsup) cited Pfizer in granting the defendants' motion to dismiss the UCL claim:
Actions alleging violations of the Unfair Competition Law may be brought "by any person who has suffered injury in fact and has lost money or property as a result of such unfair competition." Cal. Bus. & Prof.Code § 17204. In the instant action, plaintiffs do not allege that they lost money or property as a result of Chevron's false statements about the environmental and health harms in Ecuador. For plaintiffs to prevail, they would have to claim that their cancer or increased risk of cancer caused them to lose property or money and that the false statements caused the cancer or increased risk thereof. Such a contention would be patently absurd and appears nowhere in the complaint.
In addition, the "as a result of" language in the statute means that, for a plaintiff to state a claim, he or she must allege that they relied upon the defendant's acts of unfair competition and, as a result, suffered injury in fact. Pfizer v.Super. Ct. of L.A. County, No. B188106, --- Cal.Rptr.3d ----, 2006 WL 1892581 at *9 (Cal.Ct.App. July 11, 2006). Plaintiffs here do not allege that they suffered cancer or increased risk of cancer due to misleading statements made by Chevron. Their claim founders on this silence.
2006 WL 2053504 at *3. It is somewhat difficult to analyze this language, because the order does not really explain who the plaintiffs are or what they were claiming the defendants did wrong. It talks about environmental pollution, people who contracted cancer, and the defendant's alleged "false statements." If the plaintiffs contracted cancer due to the defendants' environmental pollution, and spent money on a physician's care, then they certainly would have "lost money or property as a result of" the defendant's conduct. However, that does not seem to be what the complaint alleged. Leave to amend was granted, so it will be interesting to see what develops in this case, especially now that Pfizer has been impliedly overruled.