Vitaminwater VS Subway Footlong
Verdict DROP IT DROP IT
The Reality When consumers sued Coca-Cola in 2009 over these claims, the company's own legal defense -- raised in its motion to dismiss -- was that 'no consumer could reasonably be misled into thinking Vitaminwater was a healthy beverage.' US District Court Judge John Gleeson rejected that defense in July 2010, ruling that naming the product 'vitaminwater' and its flavors 'energy,' 'revive,' and 'defense' has 'the potential to reinforce a consumer's mistaken belief that the product is composed of only vitamins and water,' and largely denied Coca-Cola's motion to dismiss the case. After an Australian teenager posted a photo in 2013 showing his 'Footlong' measuring only 11 inches, a New York Post check of seven Footlongs purchased in New York found four measured only 11 or 11.5 inches. A resulting US class-action lawsuit reached a settlement requiring Subway to maintain practices ensuring its bread is at least 12 inches for four years, with ten named plaintiffs receiving $500 each. However, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals rejected that settlement in August 2017, calling it 'worthless' because limited discovery had actually found Subway already took steps to ensure 12-inch bread and that the minor length variability was due to normal, unpreventable baking variation -- meaning the underlying claims had little merit once properly examined, and the court held 'no class action settlement that yields zero benefits for the class should be approved.'
SHORT ANSWER
Vitaminwater: Coca-Cola's own legal defense against a 2009 lawsuit over vitaminwater's health claims argued that no reasonable consumer should have believed the product was healthy in the first place -- and a federal judge ruled the product's own naming and flavor names could still mislead people into thinking it was.
Subway Footlong: A viral 2013 photo and follow-up press checks found some real 'Footlong' sandwiches measuring only 11 to 11.5 inches, but a federal appeals court later found Subway's actual baking process was already designed to produce 12-inch bread, with the shortfall caused by normal, unpreventable oven variability rather than a deliberate shortchange.