{"id":431,"date":"2016-06-27T20:08:24","date_gmt":"2016-06-27T20:08:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bowditch.com\/craftbrewerylegalblog\/?p=431"},"modified":"2020-07-31T13:29:14","modified_gmt":"2020-07-31T13:29:14","slug":"california-district-court-disposes-of-challenge-to-millercoors-marketing-of-blue-moon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bowditch.com\/craftbrewerylegalblog\/2016\/06\/27\/california-district-court-disposes-of-challenge-to-millercoors-marketing-of-blue-moon\/","title":{"rendered":"California District Court Disposes of Challenge to MillerCoors\u2019 Marketing of Blue Moon"},"content":{"rendered":"

During an apparent respite from the controversy surrounding the Trump University Case<\/a>, California District Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel recently found time to dispose of another high profile case in which a craft beer enthusiast accused MillerCoors of deceptively marketing its popular Blue Moon Belgian-style beer. Parent v. MillerCoors<\/em> has been lingering since October of 2015, when Judge Curiel allowed the Plaintiff, Evan Parent, to amend his complaint. On June 16, 2016, the case was finally dismissed in favor of MillerCoors.<\/p>\n

Mr. Parent\u2019s original complaint<\/a> alleged that Blue Moon does not fit within the American Brewers Association\u2019s definition of craft beer, and therefore, MillerCoors\u2019 marketing of Blue Moon as \u201cartfully crafted\u201d along with its placement of Blue Moon in liquor stores next to craft beers, its pricing of Blue Moon, and its listing of Blue Moon on the MillerCoors website with other \u201ccraft\u201d beers amounts to a violation of California consumer protection and false advertising laws.<\/p>\n

Mr. Parent\u2019s amended complaint made the same legal arguments, but added additional factual allegations to support those claims. Mr. Parent argued that in addition to not meeting the American Brewers Association\u2019s definition of a craft beer, it also does not meet the various dictionary definitions which define craft beers as \u201cspecialty beer produced in limited quantities\u201d that are \u201cmade using traditional methods in small, independent breweries.\u201d Mr. Parent also alleged that MillerCoors falsely portrayed Blue Moon as \u201chaving been invented independently by Dr. Keith Villa<\/a> . . . when, in fact Dr. Villa was a MillerCoors employee who developed Blue Moon at the direction of MillerCoors executives.\u201d Finally, Mr. Parent added additional allegations concerning the advertisement of Blue Moon as a craft beer in various restaurants and concert venues, and MillerCoors\u2019 direction of retailers to price and stock Blue Moon as they would other craft beers.<\/p>\n

Judge Curiel found that the various advertisements that Mr. Parent cites constitute \u201cnon-actionable puffery\u201d rather than false advertisements. Judge Curiel relied on well-settled case law which states that actionable misrepresentations must contain specific and measurable claims \u201ccapable of being proved false or of being reasonably interpreted as a statement of objective fact.\u201d The Court found that MillerCoors\u2019 advertisements were too vague and unspecific to mislead a reasonable consumer. The Court also reiterated that MillerCoors cannot be liable for actions taken by retailers in marketing Blue Moon as a craft beer because MillerCoors did not exercise the type of \u201cunbridled control\u201d over retailers\u2019 conduct that would make it responsible for the retailers\u2019 claims or advertisements.<\/p>\n

Parent v. MillerCoors<\/em> is a win for large brewers and provides them with helpful guidelines concerning the thresholds for false advertising of \u201ccraft\u201d beers produced in large quantities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

During an apparent respite from the controversy surrounding the Trump University Case, California District Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel recently found time to dispose of another high profile case in which a craft beer enthusiast accused MillerCoors of deceptively marketing its popular Blue Moon Belgian-style beer. Parent v. MillerCoors has been…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nCalifornia District Court Disposes of Challenge to MillerCoors\u2019 Marketing of Blue Moon - At the Bar With Bowditch<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bowditch.com\/craftbrewerylegalblog\/2016\/06\/27\/california-district-court-disposes-of-challenge-to-millercoors-marketing-of-blue-moon\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"California District Court Disposes of Challenge to MillerCoors\u2019 Marketing of Blue Moon - At the Bar With Bowditch\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"During an apparent respite from the controversy surrounding the Trump University Case, California District Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel recently found time to dispose of another high profile case in which a craft beer enthusiast accused MillerCoors of deceptively marketing its popular Blue Moon Belgian-style beer. 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