Earth Island Institute v. Coca-Cola Co.

The District of Columbia Court of Appeals reversed the dismissal of a deceptive marketing lawsuit against Coca-Cola Company under the D.C. Consumer Protection Procedures Act (CPPA). The plaintiff, Earth Island Institute, alleged that Coca-Cola misled consumers regarding its environmental sustainability with statements that touted the company’s efforts to address packaging waste when the company actually was failing to take necessary steps to meet its sustainability goals. Allegedly misleading statements included that the company was taking a “leadership position” on the “interconnected global challenges of packaging waste and climate change.” As a threshold matter, the court found that Earth Island Institute had standing to bring the CPPA claim. On the merits, the Court of Appeals found that the plaintiff stated a facially plausible misrepresentation and rejected arguments that “aspirational” statements could not be actionable under the CPPA. The Court of Appeals also found that Coca-Cola’s claims regarding plastic packaging were “very much statements about its ‘goods and services’” for purposes of the CPPA. The appellate court also held that misleading misrepresentations did not have to be in a single statement to be actionable under the CPPA. In addition, the court rejected Coca-Cola’s argument that the First Amendment precluded the lawsuit.

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The D.C. Superior Court dismissed a lawsuit alleging that Coca-Cola Company’s statements about its sustainability initiatives on various platforms such as its website and Twitter constituted false and deceptive marketing in violation of the District of Columbia Consumer Protection Procedures Act (CPPA). The court first found that the plaintiff failed to state a claim because Coca-Cola’s statements were “aspirational in nature” and therefore not in violation of the CPPA. In addition, the court found that statements regarding “corporate ethos, hopes, and philosophies” in corporate communications could not be considered “part of the product itself” and therefore could not serve as the basis for claims under CPPA provisions that require deception involving a specific “goods or services.” With respect to the CPPA provisions not tied to specific “goods and services,” the court found that a claim could not be made “on the basis of a ‘general impression’ or a ‘mosaic of representations’” but instead that misrepresentations had to be tied to a material fact. The court further found that, “[e]ven taken together,” Coca-Cola’s statements were “aspirational, limited, and vague such that, as a matter of law, such statements cannot be misleading.”