New Jersey bar patrons alleging that the chain restaurant, TGI Friday’s, Inc. (TGIF), violated consumer protection laws by omitting drink prices from its menus will have to proceed with their claims as individual plaintiffs after the New Jersey Appellate Division decertified their class.
The Panel reversed the trial court’s class certification in a lawsuit against TGIF that began more than six years ago, when a woman claimed that she was charged $2.00 for a beer at the restaurant’s bar and later charged $3.59 for the same beer at a table in the restaurant. The woman claimed that the price discrepancy and the fact that TGI Friday’s does not print drink prices on its menus were in violation of the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act (NJCFA), N.J.S.A. 56:8-1, et seq., and the Truth in Consumer Contract Warranty and Notice Act (TCCWNA), N.J.S.A., 56:12-11, et seq. Two additional plaintiffs joined the lawsuit and the trial judge granted class certification to anyone who ordered unpriced drinks at any corporate owned TGI Friday’s in New Jersey from 2004 through 2014.
The Panel’s decision to decertify the class relied on the requirement of New Jersey Court Rule 4:32-1(b)(3), the class action rule, which requires that “questions of law or fact common to the members of the class predominate over any questions affecting only individual members.” In a published decision dated March 24, 2016, the Panel held that the plaintiffs did not meet the “predominance” requirement for class action certification because “individualized inquiries” would be necessary to establish whether individual plaintiffs received a TGIF menu that violated the law and whether the lack of pricing on the menu caused plaintiffs’ damages. Dugan v. TGI Fridays, Inc., 2016 WL 1136486, at *4 (N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div. Mar. 24, 2016).
With respect to the NJCFA claim, the Panel concluded that people who either were not given menus or did not ask for the price before ordering a drink could not prove causation, while those who relied upon the stated price could conceivably have claims. Therefore, claims for damages would necessarily involve inquiries to determine whether or not individual class members were provided a menu in order to determine whether each class member sustained a loss caused by the absence of prices on the menus.
Similarly, with respect to the TCCWNA claim—which does not contain the NJCFA’s fee shifting or treble damages provisions but does provide for statutory and actual damages—each individual class member would be required to demonstrate that they were actually provided with a menu that contained technical violations of state or federal law. Id. at *9-10.
Significantly, the Panel’s decision may slow the sudden rush of class actions brought under the TCCWNA by eliminating cases based on technical violations where consumers cannot actually prove that they received the material that forms the basis for the violation.
