The inventiveness of North American class action litigants should never be underestimated.
This case dealt with Reese’s Peanut Butter pumpkins sold in a packaging depicting a pumpkin candy that had triangle eyes and a smile. The sweet inside is pumpkin-shaped but doesn’t have a face.
The plaintiffs claimed that they were disappointed when they opened up the package and they would not have purchased it if they knew there were no eyes and mouth on the sweet. The plaintiff consumers alleged a violation of the relevant State, Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.
The court, in dismissing the claim, said that all of the plaintiffs’ allegations “boiled down to their subjective, personal expectations of how the products would or should have looked when unpackaged”. There were no factual allegations regarding the price the plaintiffs would have paid if the sweet had not been marketed with the “decorative artistic designs on the packaging”.
“Indeed, there are no allegations by which this court might measure the difference between the value of the Reese’s products with or without the decorative carvings, much less allegations supporting plaintiffs’ broad, conclusory claim in their response that products with the decorative carvings would potentially be worth more”.
There was no allegation that the products were unfit for consumption, did not taste as expected, or otherwise were so flawed as to render them worthless. The claimants were “disappointed” that the sweets purchased did not have the detailed carving pictures on the product packaging. The court said that there was not enough pleaded to establish “concrete economic injury” to found a case. There was no allegation that the product was defective or worthless or that the plaintiffs had suffered a concrete injury stemming from the packaging.
The USA has had decades of experience in class action litigation and is a sophisticated class action jurisdiction.
In South Africa class action litigation is growing in awareness but is relatively nascent compared to the USA, Canada and Australia.
Recently the South African High Court Rules were amended, with effect from 19 September 2025 to include a definition of class actions and requirements for the certification of class actions.
The rules do not deal with the substance of what is required to successfully bring a class action. Only the procedure for doing so and must be read together with the existing class action jurisprudence.