An oft-litigated issue in false-advertising class actions is whether a plaintiff can show that each class member relied on the challenged statement when they made their purchasing decision.  The Eighth Circuit recently offered an example of how this issue can pose a significant roadblock to class certification in In re Folgers Coffee Marketing, — F.4th —, 2025 WL 3292613 (8th Cir. Nov. 26, 2025).   

The plaintiff—a consumer of Folgers coffee—alleged that certain statements on Folgers’s products purportedly misrepresented how many cups of coffee a consumer can brew from the products’ contents.  Seeking to represent a class of Missouri consumers, the plaintiff brought claims under Missouri’s consumer protection statute and unjust enrichment.  At class certification, the district court certified the plaintiff’s proposed class.

The Eighth Circuit reversed the district court’s decision on predominance grounds. Starting with the consumer protection claim, the court concluded that a significant portion of the proposed class was not misled by the challenged statements. Many class members either didn’t read the challenged statements, didn’t care about them, or didn’t share the plaintiff’s interpretation of them. Accordingly, figuring out who was purportedly injured would require numerous inquiries into each class member’s tastes and perceptions, undermining the efficiencies gained from proceeding as a class action.  The court reached the same result on the plaintiff’s unjust enrichment claim, concluding that whether a particular transaction was unjust turns on the specific circumstances of each transaction.

The court rejected the plaintiff’s argument that all class members were injured because the challenged statements spurred higher prices through increased demand for Folgers products. Accepting this argument, the court reasoned, would allow class members who were not misled to piggyback on the claims of class members who were allegedly misled—an impermissible result under Article III and state law.

The Eighth Circuit’s decision is consistent with decisions from other courts that have also held that issues such as reliance and causation pose significant challenges to proving that common questions predominate over individualized issues.