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Judge Rules That Reasonable Consumer Should Know "Crunchberries" Are Not Fruit

Posted by samzenpus on from the buyer-beware dept.

Janine Sugawara was so shocked and dismayed when she learned that "Crunchberries" were not actual fruit that she sued, on behalf of herself and all other painfully ignorant people who thought Captain Crunch ran some sort of brightly colored berry farm. I can't imagine what she thought a Butterfinger was composed of. Common sense won in this instance when a judge of the US District Court for the Eastern District of California dismissed the lawsuit, saying "In this case ... while the challenged packaging contains the word 'berries' it does so only in conjunction with the descriptive term 'crunch.' This Court is not aware of, nor has Plaintiff alleged the existence of, any actual fruit referred to as a 'crunchberry.' Furthermore, the 'Crunchberries' depicted on the [box] are round, crunchy, brightly-colored cereal balls, and the [box] clearly states both that the Product contains 'sweetened corn & oat cereal' and that the cereal is 'enlarged to show texture.' Thus, a reasonable consumer would not be deceived into believing that the Product in the instant case contained a fruit that does not exist. ... So far as this Court has been made aware, there is no such fruit growing in the wild or occurring naturally in any part of the world."

14 comments

  1. Watch out, Post! by Locke2005 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Grape-Nuts is obviously the next target!

    --
    I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
    1. Re:Watch out, Post! by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 1

      What platform is the Web server for that link on? Eunuchs?

      --
      My blog
  2. Legal way to win by ChrisBader · · Score: 1

    The way that this sounds is that if for whatever reason there were such as a crunchberry they would have a valid argument and have the possibility of suing successfully. So if they were just so lucky as a new type of berry is discovered and is named crunchberry then they could sue, asuming that the name of the cerial changed or added crunchberries.

  3. In related news.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Captain Crunch found dead.. Police suspect cereal killer..

    1. Re:In related news.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Count Chocula?

    2. Re:In related news.. by The_mad_linguist · · Score: 1

      Well, he didn't dirty his hands directly...

      http://www.webcomicsnation.com/poyorick/botg2/series.php?view=archive&chapter=25600

    3. Re:In related news.. by ls671 · · Score: 1

      This reminds me something ;-)

      In the old days, had an employee that sometime forgot to increment the "serial" in the SOA part of DNS zone files in bind after he made changes to them. When he forgot it, slave DNS servers wouldn't update themselves from the master with the new information.

      So I would ask him : Did you think about changing the serial ?

      He would reply; Sure ! I even upgraded from Corn Flakes to Captain Crunch...

      --
      Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
  4. Darwin throws hands up in defeat by CorvisRex · · Score: 1

    You mean grapes don't have nuts?!?
    PLEASE, PLEASE tell me that this woman isn't allowed to breed...for the sake of the human species...

    1. Re:Darwin throws hands up in defeat by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You mean grapes don't have nuts?!?

      PLEASE, PLEASE tell me that this woman isn't allowed to breed...for the sake of the human species...

      Worse. She votes.

    2. Re:Darwin throws hands up in defeat by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Guys, look, I know she's retarded, and she sued over a box of cereal. But you're missing out on context.

      She's probably not a native English speaker. In all likelihood, she's Japanese, and do we really expect everyone to know every type of fruit? Really? Peru alone has 600.

      I'm just saying.
      Slade

    3. Re:Darwin throws hands up in defeat by gujo-odori · · Score: 1

      In all likelihood, she's not Japanese. Her given name is Janine (while some English names have limited popularity as given names in Japan, that's not one of them), and the court was in the eastern district of California. Most of the actual Japanese in California are living either here in the SF Bay area (where I live) or in the LA area (where I used to live).

      I'm also not entirely certain she's as stupid as we think. She may just be an utterly dishonest person who thought she could make a few bucks off of PepsiCo by filing a lawsuit like this and settling out of court, but their lawyers flipped her lawyer the bird.

      Sound implausible? Remember that Darl & SCO tried that, depending on who you ask, is only a little bit more or a little bit less ridiculous.

  5. Time to Switch by Phat_Tony · · Score: 1

    What? Crunch berries aren't real fruit!

    Guess I'll be switching to Franken Berry.

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    Can anyone tell me how to set my sig on Slashdot?
    1. Re:Time to Switch by gujo-odori · · Score: 1

      I can only believe that this is a scam. As little faith as I have in people's intelligence (being in the computer security biz and all), it defies imagination that she could not know this. As a five-year old in 1967, I ate Captain Crunch with Crunchberries (they were only red back then) because I saw the TV commercials and badgered my parents to buy them. It was my favorite cereal for a while. Even before that, I'd been eating the regular Captain Crunch cereal. Never like the peanut butter version, though. Blech. What genius thought that one up?

    2. Re:Time to Switch by gujo-odori · · Score: 1

      Forgot to add that as a five year old in 1967, I knew perfectly well that Crunchberries were not berries, and I never thought they were, not even in the TV commercials. She had to have been trying to pull a Darl here. What she should have realized it that it didn't work out so well for Darl, either.