The Santa Ana-based California Court of Appeal today affirmed an Orange County judge's decision to throw out a case against General Mills by a consumer upset about the company's marketing ploy for its candy, or what is nowadays called “fruit snacks.”
A three-justice panel headed by Acting Presiding Justice William W. Bedsworth ruled that Tom McVeigh had no case against the company after complaining that he didn't win a sweepstakes contest that he says caused him to buy Fruit Gushers. When he opened the candy box the disappointed man found the product and a note that said, “Try again.”
McVeigh had claimed the “YOU CAN WIN CASH!” advertisement was a violation of California's unfair competition laws. He wanted the company to refund his money for the candy and suffer an injunction.
But the appellate panel agreed with Superior Court Judge Charles Margines, who toss the case last year. Both said McVeigh hadn't suffered any damages and declared that the company's Betty Crocker marketing ploy wasn't illegal.
“McVeigh alleges he bought Fruit Gushers because the box label promised a chance to win cash,” Bedsworth wrote. “He received that chance.”
–R. Scott Moxley / OC Weekly
CNN-featured investigative reporter R. Scott Moxley has won Journalist of the Year honors at the Los Angeles Press Club; been named Distinguished Journalist of the Year by the LA Society of Professional Journalists; obtained one of the last exclusive prison interviews with Charles Manson disciple Susan Atkins; won inclusion in Jeffrey Toobin’s The Best American Crime Reporting for his coverage of a white supremacist’s senseless murder of a beloved Vietnamese refugee; launched multi-year probes that resulted in the FBI arrests and convictions of the top three ranking members of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department; and gained praise from New York Times Magazine writers for his “herculean job” exposing entrenched Southern California law enforcement corruption.