Size of Box Not Enough to Support Junior Mints Deception Claim

(March 22, 2019) An oversized Junior Mints box half full may be a disappointment, but that’s not enough for a claim of actual damages in federal court.

Paige Stemm bought a box of Junior Mints for about a dollar in a Walgreens store in Belleville, Illinois. When she opened the box, only slightly over half was full of candy. She thought she was misled and filed a class action in federal court in Chicago under the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act. She contended that empty space in the package, known as “slack-fill,” was non-functional because it did not protect the candy and was not formed by the product settling. She relied only on the size of the box for her claim.

Tootsie Roll Industries, Inc., maker of Junior Mints, contended that the information outside the box disclosed the number of candies in the box and the weight, so there was no deception. The trial court found that it could not decide as a matter of law that Tootsie Roll’s disclosure of the weight and number of pieces precluded Ms. Stemm’s claim.

However, the court did find that Ms. Stemm “has not alleged that the candy that she received was defective or worth less than the dollar she paid for it. Instead, she claims that she expected to receive more candy than she did. . . That she expected to receive something more than what she got, in and of itself, does not constitute actual damages.”

Paige Stemm v. Tootsie Roll Industries, Inc., N.D. Ill. No. 18 C 2289, issued March 19, 2019.