A federal court recently struck nationwide class allegations at the pleadings stage after determining that the plaintiff’s nationwide claims would be unmanageable given variations among state fraud and consumer protection laws. The case may augur an increasing willingness of federal courts to reject plaintiff arguments that the viability of putative nationwide classes cannot be determined without the benefit of discovery.

• The proposed class action alleged that Barilla America Inc. misled customers by touting that its pasta sauces contain “no preservatives,” even though they are made with citric acid, a chemical preservative recognized by the FDA.
• The plaintiff, a New York customer who purchased Barilla sauce in New York, brought suit in Illinois raising claims under New York and Illinois consumer protection laws, as well as “substantially similar” consumer protection laws nationwide.
• The court granted Barilla’s motion to strike the nationwide class allegations, opining that “it is difficult to imagine a reasonable number of subclasses could be used to make the class action plaintiff proposes manageable.” The court cited “the number of jurisdictions at issue [and] also the multitude of dimensions on which state consumer protection laws differ substantively and procedurally.”
• This ruling is in line with other courts in the district that have rejected nationwide consumer fraud class actions on the grounds that they present a “logistical and procedural nightmare.”
• The court also dismissed the plaintiff’s Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Practices Act claim after concluding that the statute did not apply extraterritorially to the plaintiff’s New York-based claims.

The case is Kubilius v. Barilla America Inc., and you can read more here.