Class Action Challenges ‘64 Loads’ Claim on Tide Free & Gentle Laundry Detergent Bottles [DISMISSED]
Last Updated on January 19, 2024
Adeghe v. The Procter & Gamble Company
Filed: November 25, 2022 ◆§ 7:22-cv-10025
A proposed class action takes issue with the “64 loads” claim on 2.72-liter bottles of Tide Free & Gentle laundry detergent.
New York
January 19, 2024 – Class Action Over “64 Loads” Claim on Tide Free & Gentle Detergent Dismissed by Federal Judge
The proposed class action detailed on this page was dismissed by a federal judge on January 2, 2024.
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In a 19-page opinion and order issued that day, United States District Judge Cathy Seibel granted the Procter & Gamble Company’s June 2023 motion to dismiss the plaintiff’s amended complaint on the grounds that the Tide detergent’s labeling would not mislead a reasonable consumer.
In particular, Judge Seibel found that the plaintiff did not adequately allege that the detergent’s front label gives the unambiguous impression that it would provide enough product to wash 64 full loads of laundry.
“Instead, the ambiguity on the Product’s front label—and the ◊ after the word ‘loads’—would prompt a reasonable consumer to consult the Product’s back label,” the judge wrote. “There, they would find additional context clarifying the ‘64 loads◊’ representation, expressly stating that the Product contains enough detergent for 64 medium loads as measured using the Product’s cap.”
The judge added that as “washing machines vary in their capacity and people vary in their needs and preferences, it is not plausible that [the plaintiff] would see the word ‘load’ on the Product and assume that the manufacturer meant ‘the amount of laundry that fills my machine.’”
Court records indicate that the case was closed on January 2.
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A proposed class action takes issue with the “64 loads” claim on 2.72-liter bottles of Tide Free & Gentle detergent, claiming that most consumers who follow the back-label instructions will only get, at most, 32 loads of laundry.
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The nine-page suit says that although the number 64 on the front label grabs a consumer’s attention, it is followed by a hard-to-see white diamond: “loads ♢.” Upon reading the back of the container, a consumer will learn that it is possible to do 64 “medium” loads of laundry with a bottle of Tide Free & Gentle, but only if they fill the cap to below the first bar each time, the lawsuit relays.
The lawsuit alleges Tide maker The Procter & Gamble Company has misrepresented that bottles of Free & Gentle contain enough detergent for 64 loads of laundry in that the company has not clearly disclosed that its measurement is based on “the smallest size loads of laundry.”
“For the majority of Americans who do laundry in loads reasonably characterized as ‘full,’ they will only be able to get half as many, or 32 loads of laundry, from the Product when run at high efficiency,” the filing says.
As a result of P&G’s “false and misleading representations,” Tide Free & Gentle is sold at a premium price, higher than similar products that are represented in “a non-misleading way,” and higher than it would be sold in the absence of the misleading labeling, the lawsuit argues.
The case looks to cover consumers in New York, Texas, South Dakota, Wyoming, Idaho, Alaska, Iowa, West Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina and Utah who bought Tide Free & Gentle laundry detergent within the applicable statute of limitations period.
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