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Wait, There's No Ginger In 'Ginger Ale'? Dr. Pepper Sued For False Advertising

A class action suit against Dr. Pepper survives a motion to dismiss.

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(Photo by Tim Graham/Getty Images)

I’m a smart consumer, intellectually and constitutionally resistant to most of the wild claims of product advertising. I know what’s in my Taco Bell, for instance.

So it’s not like I actually thought grabbing a Canada Dry Ginger Ale was going to get me sucked into a field of ginger. I’M NOT A SAP, OKAY?

But… like, I thought there was some freaking ginger in my refreshing ginger ale. Apparently, that assumption was in gullible error. From Courthouse News Service:

A federal judge in Missouri ruled that Dr. Pepper can’t dodge a class action claiming its Canada Dry Ginger Ale is not made with real ginger.

“Because plaintiff alleges independent laboratory testing revealed that the product does not contain a detectable amount of ginger and a reasonable consumer would be misled into believing that the product contains at least some detectable amount of ginger, the court finds the representation ‘made from real ginger’ could be false or misleading to a reasonable consumer,” U.S. District Judge Roseann Ketchmark wrote in a 14-page opinion issued Wednesday.

Normally, I think these kind of lawsuits are stupid. They have a colorable legal claim, sure, but nobody is really harmed by thinking this product has that natural ingredient. I’m much more concerned when a product is advertised “this will not kill you” and it turns out it absolutely does kill you and the makers know it kills you but decided it was cheaper to kill you than fix the product. (Disclosure: I’m smoking again so obviously “this will kill you” is not necessarily a bar to me buying a product.)

But it seems to me that you shouldn’t be allowed to market something as “ginger ale” and then put no freaking ginger in it. That’s… gaslight capitalism. That would be like them taking all the cocaine out of Coca-Cola! Next thing, you’ll be telling me that Canada Dry doesn’t even come from Canada.

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Joking aside, you shouldn’t be able to advertise that your product is made with real anything and then not have at least a dollop of the real stuff in it. We’ve got entirely too much lying going on in this society.

Dr. Pepper Must Face Suit Over Ginger Ale Labeling [Courthouse News Service]

Elie Mystal is the Executive Editor of Above the Law and the Legal Editor for More Perfect. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at elie@abovethelaw.com. He will resist.

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