The hard-charging California company behind POM Wonderful pomegranate juice is facing a two-front legal fight.
On the East Coast, the juice maker crosses swords with the Federal Trade Commission. An appellate court’s recent refusal to reconsider an earlier ruling against POM Wonderful plants the possibility of a climactic challenge going to the nation’s highest court.
On the West Coast, thanks to a previous and unrelated Supreme Court victory, the company is preparing to take its would-be competitors at the Coca-Cola Co. to trial next year.
Both cases involve claims of deceptive marketing, but with one big difference: POM Wonderful is playing defense in one case and offense in the other.
In the nation’s capital, the company has been defending itself against an FTC ruling that it made misleading health claims in its advertising between 2003 and 2010.
The full U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on May 28 denied the company’s request for a rehearing of a Jan. 30 decision by a three-judge panel that largely upheld the trade commission.
“POM touted medical studies ostensibly showing that daily consumption of its products could treat, prevent, or reduce the risk of various ailments, including heart disease, prostate cancer, and erectile dysfunction,” Judge Sri Srinivasan wrote in the Jan. 30 decision. “Many of those ads mischaracterized the scientific evidence concerning the health benefits of POM’s products.”
On June 15, the appellate judges issued the formal order to the FTC effectively finalizing the decision. Whether or not the parent company, formerly known as Roll Global and now newly renamed The Wonderful Co., makes a final appeal to the Supreme Court by an Aug. 28 deadline, its legal struggle against regulators already has been remarkably robust.
