Class Action Lawsuit Settlement - Pet Food Companies Barking and Biting

Today, April 4, 2008, I attended a court session held on the Class Action filed by Cathy MacIvor of Maltzman Foreman PA on behalf of pet owners who have suffered loss or injury due to false advertising by pet food companies. The hearing was held in Miami, Florida's Federal Court and ruled by Judge Altonaga. The hearing was conducted because the pet food companies wanted to have the case dismissed.

The Maltzman Law firm was represented by Cathy MacIvor, attorney, two paralegal professionals, and an intern. The Plaintiffs for the case (people who have had injury or damages to their pets) were represented by Renee Blaskowski and Susan Peters.

The Defendants (the folks who have been producing and selling damaging pet food), 23 pet food companies were represented by a number of impressive, high power attorneys. There seemed to be two main speakers for the pet food companies. One was a woman attorney for Nutro Pet food and the other was a woman attorney for Nestle.

Before I begin telling about my experience in court today I want to make it perfectly clear to you that I did not take a transcript and that the comments I make here are in my words and are my impressions of today's events. With that said, let me tell you the exciting news!

Nestle wants to protect the household name it has built for itself and asked that the Nestle name not be held accountable for the pet food portion of the company. This means that Purina is the name to be held responsible for the false advertising and poor quality pet food it produces.

Nutro Pet foods did not even understand what the suit was about and continually had to be reminded by the judge why they were there. Nutro does not want to be held accountable for the pet food it produces. Nutro was worried that future products, with bad ingredients, made by Nutro would cost them a lot of money in damages if made to be responsible for what they produce. This sounded to me like Nutro plans to continue to make bad pet food. Nutro wanted the judge to remove responsibility from Nutro if the person's pet was killed or injured fed any other pet food or watched any other pet food company commercials or read any other pet food company's ads. Judge Altonaga had to remind Nutro a number of times that Nutro should be held accountable for the pet food they produce.

Today's hearing was about the pet food companies wanting to have our claim against them dismissed. Judge Altonaga ruled against the pet food companies!!! Judge Altonaga wants to see this case get rolling at a faster speed. The judge reminded us that this case has been in Federal court for a year now and need to get moving. We should be hearing a lot more about this case in the next few weeks.

I will keep you posted as the news rolls in. For those of you who have been posting comments and questions to me over the last week or two, I would like to apologize for not having a quick response. I should be back to my computer in about a week. I have a long drive back to Oklahoma and a lot of catching up on pet food reviews, etc.