- Does drinking diet
soda promise weight loss?
A California woman sued Diet Dr Pepper
claiming the company's
ads were misleading,
and that in the 13 years
she drank the beverage,
she did not get what she paid for.
(audience laughter)
Not unexpectedly, she lost her case.
Not once, but twice.
And everyone is laughing a little bit,
because there's a little bit of, duh,
of course you're not gonna get
skinny by drinking diet soda.
- If you've been doing,
if you've been on the
same diet for 13 years
and you haven't gotten
the results you want,
you should've taken a
step back a long time ago.
- I'm curious though, as a lawyer,
are you surprised at all by the verdict?
Because there is the other
argument, you call it diet.
Literally, you call the product diet!
- Okay, no I'm not surprised
this case got tossed.
The Ninth Circuit got
it right and they said,
any reasonable person
could not possibly believe
that diet means you're gonna lose weight.
That a reasonable person
is gonna understand,
that diet simply means less
calories than the regular.
And I actually, the nerd that I am,
I read the Ninth circuit opinion,
and it was scathing against this woman.
So they got it right, they tossed it.
- Did she bring the case herself,
or did she actually hire a lawyer.
- She hired a lawyer,
and so that's how it got
to the Ninth Circuit.
She appealed the lower courts
ruling who tossed it out,
but the Ninth Circuit
affirmed, they got it right.
- Are you surprised that
one of your colleagues
took this case?
- [Man In Gray Suit] Yeah,
what was he thinking, or she?
- That's what I said, you
know, these are the cases
that make attorneys look bad.
And really it's insulting to
people who truly spend money
on products and services when
they are clearly lied to.
I mean you see this in a lot
of weight supplement cases
and stuff like that, so
it's sort of like, come on,
her arguments are so preposterous.
I drank this for 13 years,
and I never lost weight,
and I thought that I would.
It's just a slap in the face
to true victims of false advertising.
- I think this person was
going for some sort of payday,
obviously,
and people will do that.
But I wanna ask you,
before we go to a break.
This was a ridiculous case,
but why is it so hard,
in the legal world,
to flip the script on false advertising?
- Well fraud has a high standard,
you really have to show
the company intentionally lied to you,
they intentionally mislead you.
But there are cases that are
successful, that are valid,
and those are the ones we need to look at.
But when you see cases
as frivolous as this,
it makes the system
kinda look like a joke,
and that's not what its supposed to be.
And each case really does
turn on it's own facts.
This case just clearly
did not have the facts.
- And then last but not
least, how did I do as judge
of the doctors court today?
- You did excellent.
You made a great slippery slope argument,
and you've been doing
excellent, Your Honor.
- Are we sending anybody to jail?
- No, no- (incoherent chatter)
- Clearly you ruled on the Dr Pepper case,
that was clear and dry that, but,
- [Female Panelist] Yeah you did,
the other one I feel like
we didn't get a definitive.
- My ruling,
- What are you going to do
with kissing cousins, judge?
- Yeah.
- Judge, please sentence them to jail.
- I would tell them to cease and deist
all of this promotion on social media.
And if they truly want to
raise this child together,
just do it and stop bragging
about what, you know,
doing something that's illegal!
Because I hate to say it,
but if you're bragging about
doing something illegal
and that's the law in your
state then you're guilty.
(gavel banging)
Is that the right thing?
- Yes.
(audience applauds)
- The doctors court is now out of session.
Anahita, thank you so much.
