Opinion ID: 6322354
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: False-Advertising Claims

Text: The district court dismissed plaintiffs’ false-advertising claims for several reasons, including that the complaint alleged “third[ ]parties and not [defendants] themselves produced the false advertisements.” App. vol. 2, 559. On appeal, plaintiffs do not dispute the district court’s assessment that defendants did not produce the allegedly false advertisements; instead, they argue that the district court erred by failing to join those third parties as indispensable parties. But this is not an issue of indispensable parties. It is an issue of plaintiffs’ inadequate pleading. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2) (requiring “a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief”). As defendants point out, the complaints barely reference advertising (each use the word “advertising” only twice, in complaints that are over 20 pages long and include over 65 numbered paragraphs) and include only conclusory assertions regarding defendants’ participation in such advertising. The complaints also each include a single paragraph composed of pasted images of labels and advertising, images that appear to show that the advertising was created by third-party retailers, not defendants. And again, plaintiffs do not challenge the district court’s conclusion that they failed to allege defendants engaged in false advertising; nor do they rebut, in their reply brief, defendants’ similar assertion on appeal. Thus, we conclude that of America merely because it was packaged here for retail sale.” Dissent 1. On the contrary, we offer no opinion on the FSIS’s broad interpretation of the meaning of the “Product of the U.S.A.” label. We simply hold that plaintiffs cannot use their state-law claims as a mechanism for bypassing federally approved labeling. 20 Appellate Case: 20-2124 Document: 010110655707 Date Filed: 03/11/2022 Page: 21 plaintiffs’ complaints do not state a false-advertising claim against defendants, and we affirm the district court’s dismissal of the false-advertising claims on that basis. 13