Speaker 0 00:00:00 I like 5 million.
Speaker 1 00:00:03 What? They're suing for 5 million because the mac and cheese takes too long to cook.
Speaker 3 00:00:12 Oh, yay. Oh, yay. Oh, yay. Honor,
Speaker 1 00:00:18 Welcome to the US Law Essentials Law and Language Podcast, the legal English podcast for non-native English speakers that helps you improve your English listening, improve your legal English vocabulary, and build your knowledge of American legal culture. Hi, this is Daniel. And before we begin today's episode, I wanna remind you that US Law Essentials offers online courses in legal English and online courses in US law. Our courses are designed for international attorneys, students, translators, and bar candidates. If you have any questions, please contact Daniel
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[email protected] and join us on Facebook and LinkedIn. And now, today's episode, welcome to the US Law Essentials Law and Language Podcast. I'm Daniel Edelson.
Speaker 0 00:01:17 And I'm Steven Horowitz.
Speaker 1 00:01:19 And today we're continuing our What's New in the Legal News Series, and today Steven's got an article for us. What do you have, Steven?
Speaker 0 00:01:29 Okay. Dan, you might think this is a little cheesy, but the title is Her Mac and Cheese took more than 3.5 minutes to make. She's suing. Do you know what this is about?
Speaker 1 00:01:42 Wait a second. Well, Mac and Cheese, I know what that is. You know what that is?
Speaker 0 00:01:47 Right? Macaroni and cheese, a very, very common, um, if not healthy, um, meal in the United States.
Speaker 1 00:01:58 Okay. And she's suing because it took her longer than three and a half minutes to make it?
Speaker 0 00:02:05 Yes, she, this is a product, the product is actually, let's see, it's the Velveeta Shells and Cheese product. So it's a cup, um, with, I guess dry noodles and a packet of powdered cheese. And you have to open the cup and you put the powdered cheese in, you rip open the bag, put the powdered cheese in, and maybe put some water in and then put it in the microwave and then it's ready very quickly.
Speaker 1 00:02:35 Okay. So what's the problem?
Speaker 0 00:02:37 It says on the packaging it says ready in three and a half minutes. Um, and I think that it costs like $11, $10 and 99 cents, which sounds like a lot for, for macaroni and cheese, uh, which is usually a very cheap meal. Anyway, this woman in her lawsuit is saying that it actually takes more than three and a half minutes because the three and a half minutes is the time that you set on the microwave. It doesn't include the time to open the, the cup to tear the package open and to add some water.
Speaker 1 00:03:15 Oh, I get it. So on the packaging it says ready in three and a half minutes, but it actually takes longer than that because the cooking time is three and a half minutes. All the other stuff you have to do, like opening the package that makes it take longer than three and a half minutes.
Speaker 0 00:03:34 Right. And the language on the product, the words say ready in three and a half minutes. What does that mean to you, Dan? If you buy a product that says ready in three and a half minutes, do you think you need to, does that mean three and a half minutes in the microwave or does that mean total three and a half minutes?
Speaker 1 00:03:53 Um, I gotta say, if I know it's a microwaveable product, I think it means the time in the microwave. If it was a recipe and it said ready in three and a half minutes, then I, I would say it's a little bit confusing. But for me, if I know I'm supposed to put it in a microwave, I think ready in three and a half minutes means three and a half minutes cooking time.
Speaker 0 00:04:19 And, and I think we're splitting hairs here. I think, I think it's really, for most people, this is not a big deal. So it's three and a half minutes, it's four minutes, you know, an extra 30 seconds to do the other steps. It's not a big deal to most people.
Speaker 1 00:04:36 Oh, well, uh, then she must have a really, really nice lawyer because he must be suing just for like a couple dollars and he's really just trying to help this woman because it took her more than three and a half minutes. He, he must be a really helpful, nice guy.
Speaker 0 00:04:54 Yeah. You, you could say that maybe there's two lawyers. One is William Wright of the w right Law Office in West Palm Beach, and the other is Spencer Shean of Shean and Associates in Great Neck, New York. So you got a Florida lawyer and a New York lawyer working together on this.
Speaker 1 00:05:11 Wow. They must be both really nice because like how much are they suing for like, you know what, 10 or $20 or something?
Speaker 0 00:05:18 Like 5 million?
Speaker 1 00:05:21 What they're suing for 5 million because the mac and cheese takes too long to cook.
Speaker 0 00:05:28 No, it doesn't take too long to cook. It takes an extra, whatever, 30 seconds a minute to prepare in addition to the cook time.
Speaker 1 00:05:36 Oh, oh, oh. And because it's tricking people, because it takes longer than three and a half minutes, and that's, that, that's 5 million.
Speaker 0 00:05:47 Well, see the problem is that it's not just this woman. There are other people who probably experienced something similar. And so they filed a lawsuit that's not just an individual, it's a class action lawsuit.
Speaker 1 00:06:05 Oh, a class action, a class Mac and cheese action. What, what, what's a what's a class action, Steve?
Speaker 0 00:06:15 It's a lawsuit on behalf of a group of people, not just one person. If you think there's a lot of people that were harmed by something, then you could do a class action lawsuit.
Speaker 1 00:06:27 Oh, I see. So maybe this one woman who bought a Mac and cheese, if she sued, she probably wouldn't get that much money even if she won. But then you get all these people and it somehow comes out to like 5 million.
Speaker 0 00:06:47 Uh, I guess so. <laugh>, I'm not, I don't know. And I don't have any information on how they came up with the 5 million number. I do know that what they're claiming is deceptive advertising, false advertising, and there are certain statutes, um, that specifically prohibit false advertising.
Speaker 1 00:07:11 I see. So now this guy's suing the craft, which is the company that makes this mac and cheese. Um, and he's trying to bring this lawsuit on behalf of all these people who bought it, and potentially he's claiming there could be millions of dollars in damages.
Speaker 0 00:07:33 Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 00:07:36 What, what is, what does the company say about this?
Speaker 0 00:07:39 The company says that the lawsuit is frivolous and they say they are going to defend this lawsuit vigorously. They're gonna fight hard in court.
Speaker 1 00:07:51 What kind of lawyer even thinks of this?
Speaker 0 00:07:55 Ah, that's a, that's a good question because this lawyer, Mr. Sheen, it turns out he's filed more than 400 lawsuits against food and beverage companies
Speaker 1 00:08:08 Based on what?
Speaker 0 00:08:10 Based on all kinds of things. Uh, there's an example in this article, um, in the Washington Post about, uh, let's see. Um, he sued, uh, Kellogg's and he argued that their strawberry Pop Tarts marketing is deceptive because these pastries contain additional fruits, but they call it strawberry. He also has a lawsuit against Keebler and Betty Crocker, which are, which make crackers and cookies and cake mixes. Um, and they say that they're called, uh, they have certain products that are called fudge, uh, fudge flavored or fudge cookies. Um, but they don't actually contain milk fat, which he says means they're not actually fudge. And, uh, he, he led a lawsuit against Keurig, the coffee machine maker that makes those little coffee pods that you put in the machine and also against Dr. Pepper because they have products that say made with aged vanilla. And I guess maybe he, he was able to show that they don't use aged vanilla, but some other synthetic product.
Speaker 1 00:09:21 So is that why the woman chose this attorney?
Speaker 0 00:09:25 Yeah, so I don't, I don't think that the plaintiff in this mac and cheese case, uh, made her mac and cheese one day and decided I'm gonna sue. I think maybe, I think what happens sometimes in these cases is that the lawyers, uh, a lawyer like Mr. Shean sees the opportunity and then finds plaintiffs who are, who might say, yeah, I'm annoyed by that. And then they sue on their behalf because the plaintiff will not get a lot out of this. But if you can do a lot of people, if you have a lot of people in a big group, like a class action, and as a lawyer, you get a percentage of the amount that is won. The plaintiff is not paying shean on an hourly basis like, uh, like a lot of lawyers do with clients. Um, instead the plaintiff is paying nothing, and the lawyer probably gets a percentage of the total amount that, uh, that they might win in court.
Speaker 1 00:10:23 So I see. So this is, it's contingent, this is a contingency fee. So if the plaintiff's lawyer is able to recover money on behalf of this class, then the lawyer will get a certain percentage of the, of the money that the company pays.
Speaker 0 00:10:43 Yeah. And, and contingency fees, I think are fairly unique to United States legal practice. Uh, there, there might be some in, in other country legal systems, but it's, it's fairly common, especially in, um, plaintiff tort or negligence lawsuits, um, to, for, for plaintiff lawyers to work on a contingency fee. And the argument for it is that it makes access to the legal system, uh, easier and, and, and it makes a more democratic legal system.
Speaker 1 00:11:17 Yeah. I mean, he's, he's not wrong. I mean, this woman probably would not have sued because of the extra time it took to get her mac and cheese, but now she's, uh, now she's suing.
Speaker 0 00:11:32 Yep. Another interesting thing about this case is that the plaintiff filed the suit in the US District Court in Miami. So that means it's, it's in the state of Florida, but they didn't use the Florida State Court. They sued in the US District Court, which is a federal court.
Speaker 1 00:11:51 Right, right. Well, I think this ties into the, to the fact that this is a, a class action. So in certain types of class actions where multiple states are involved, there's a federal statute, the, uh, a Class Action Fairness Act that enables plaintiffs in a class action where there's multiple states involved to be able to access the federal courts. So the plaintiff is probably suing under some Florida state law and also some federal law, but craft is such a big company and the product is sold in multiple states. So that's probably their base is to argue that this case belongs in federal courts. So, uh, wow. They've made a federal case out of macaroni and cheese.
Speaker 0 00:12:44 Indeed. They have. So, so Dan, um, as we get towards the end of this episode, um, how would you feel about us making a statement about the length of this episode and when listeners will be done with it?
Speaker 1 00:12:58 I think the safest thing to say is the episode will be ready in minutes,
Speaker 0 00:13:04 Not three and a half minutes.
Speaker 1 00:13:06 No, just minutes. We, we, we don't need to say how many, how many minutes. Of course, I'm sure a lot of people wanna listen to this over and over and over and over again. So it could be, it could be hundreds and hundreds of minutes. So I think it's safest just to say minutes.
Speaker 0 00:13:18 Okay. And, and as a last thing, we'd like to, uh, warn all of our listeners, do not put this episode in your microwave
Speaker 1 00:13:26 <laugh>. That, that, that, that's an essential tip, Steve. Thank you.
Speaker 0 00:13:29 Okay. Thanks, Dan. Stay essential.
Speaker 1 00:13:31 Stay essential.
