A federal judge in California is allowing a lawsuit to proceed against T.W. Garner Food Co. that alleges the company deliberately deceives consumers because its Texas Pete products are not made in the Lone Star state.
In actuality, Texas Pete products are made in Winston-Salem and have been since 1929.
The lawsuit was filed last year in the U.S. Central District of California by Phillip White. White is seeking an undeclared amount of compensatory and punitive damages related to his purchase of a $3 bottle of Texas Pete Original Hot Sauce in a Los Angeles supermarket.
Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong’s 20-page ruling against T.W. Garner’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit was posted Thursday.
The company’s defense is that its packaging does not imply that Texas Pete was manufactured in Texas “and that a reasonable consumer would understand that the trademark symbol next to the ‘Texas Pete’ name” indicates it is a brand.
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Frimpong acknowledges the back-label disclosure lists “Winston-Salem, North Carolina.” Yet, Frimpong determined “a reasonable consumer would most likely read the reference” as a designation of T.W. Garner’s corporate address.
T.W. Garner said “the mere use of Texas Pete as a brand name and imagery of a single white star and a cowboy caricature would not mislead a reasonable consumer to believe that the hot sauce is made in Texas.” The Texas Pete brand name and trademark “identifies the Garner Foods’ brand of condiment, seasoning, hot sauces and BBQ sauce, not the location of manufacturing.”
However, Frimpong determined that when “considering the label as a whole, the court finds that a reasonable consumer, relying on the products’ labels could believe — erroneously — that the products originated in Texas.”
What moved the lawsuit from being considered as frivolous to something serious is that California law has a low bar for proving violations of business and professions code, as well as false advertising and breach of contract.
White claimed he believed that when he bought the Texas Pete sauce that he was getting a product made in Texas, in part because of the logo featuring “a notorious Texan cowboy throwing a lasso on the front label. The cowboy and lone star symbols are famously and inexorably linked to the state of Texas.”
According to the lawsuit, had he known Texas Pete was made in Winston-Salem, he wouldn’t have bought it.
White claims that by naming the hot sauce as Texas Pete, the company was trying to take advantage of consumers’ willingness to pay a premium price for products “that are authentically connected to a significant geographical area.”