Underhill, who has covered these cases extensively for Forbes as well as his legal humor blog “ Lowering the Bar ,” explains that some lawyers - himself included - relish the opportunity to be funny in a ruling. The cereal pieces are brightly colored rings, which in no way resemble any currently known fruit.” The ruling states, “Plaintiffs’ allegation that the cereal pieces themselves resemble fruit is not rational, let alone reasonable. The ruling highlights the different spellings of “fruit” and “Froot,” but really eye-rolls the plaintiffs’ claim that the cereal resembles actual fruit. Unsurprisingly, the case was ruled against the plaintiffs as a misuse of the Consumer Protection Law. The court summary for the first of these lawsuits states that the “plaintiffs, a married couple, allege that they wanted to purchase healthy cereal for their children, so they purchased this product because they believed that, based on the front panel of the cereal box, that the cereal contained actual fruit.”Īpparently, they were lead to believe this because of “the use of the word ‘Froot’ in the name, the depiction of brightly colored rings of cereal that plaintiffs claim resemble fruit.” But the most ridiculous part of their claim is where it says that the “plaintiffs purchased from time to time over the past four years.”įour fucking years! It took them that long to realize that Froot Loops weren’t real fruit! And so, with Underhill as my guide, I pulled out some of the most insane bits of legal lunacy from each. Regardless, they do offer something to the annals of legal history - namely, they’re the most absurd and hilarious court documents ever filed. The Froot Loops and Crunch Berries lawsuits never amounted to much, as they were deemed to be entirely frivolous (and one was tossed out on legal technicalities). He adds that while these kinds of laws make it easier to sue companies for wrongdoing, they can result in absurd cases as well. “All of them were brought under California’s Consumer Protection Law,” explains Kevin Underhill, a partner at the law firm Shook, Hardy & Bacon and the author of The Emergency Sasquatch Ordinance: And Other Real Laws That Human Beings Actually Dreamed Up. As ridiculous as this sounds, these claims were strong enough - or at least presented the prospect of a big enough payday - to attract several different law firms, as there were a total of seven of these nearly identical lawsuits from 2007 to 2010. But despite their obvious contributions to the American (breakfast) experience, both came under assault about a decade ago by people claiming the mascots had been knowingly deceitful.īeginning in 2007, multiple Californians declared that they were tricked by Froot Loops and Crunch Berries because, due to the names of the cereals, they believed the cereals contained a significant amount of real fruit. In 1963, each launched a new fruity breakfast cereal that quickly became part of the very fabric of this country.

One is a respected seaman the other is a beloved immigrant. For nearly 60 years, Cap’n Crunch and Toucan Sam have served the public honorably.

Cereal captain crunch berries