SACRAMENTO, Calif. (CN) — A Sacramento federal judge on Thursday said he was leaning toward dismissing a claim against a hive of honey companies, saying the lawsuit lacked specifics.
Henry’s Bullfrog Bees, Golden Prairie Honey Farms and Kelvin Adee filed suit in 2021, arguing that a handful of competing honey companies used improper methods when producing, packaging, selling, testing and importing honey. They said the companies don’t deal in genuine honey, but instead use a product with foreign sugars, an improper processing technique and immature honey.
Despite the buzz around genuine honey, factors like climate change, pollution and natural disasters have affected the supply of true, bee-created honey — leading some companies to make “fake honey” and pass it off as genuine, the plaintiffs say.
One federal judge in 2022 dismissed the complaint, saying it lacked specificity. The “genuine” honey makers then filed an amended complaint.
On Thursday, U.S. District Court Judge Daniel Calabretta said he was inclined to dismiss for the same reason.
“Do you have to plead fraud at the 30,000-foot level or something specific?” Calabretta asked, adding a lawsuit doesn’t have to detail every transaction, “but there have to be some," he said.
Attorney Jack Fitzgerald, representing the plaintiff honey makers, argued that as much as 50% of the honey in the country is adulterated.
Fitzgerald also said that all honey imported from India uses immature honey — product that hasn’t had time to mature and isn’t truly honey — meaning all honey imported from the country isn’t considered genuine in the U.S.
He also pointed to a 2018 test of 36 honey samples from one so-called fake honey company, saying 24 tested positive for extraneous syrups.
Calabretta questioned whether that specific batch of adulterated honey was then sold.
“It’s not pleading a particular instance of fraud,” the judge said.
“There’s just not a through-line of, they said this, then they did this,” he added.
The judge also appeared unpersuaded by the India argument. He said that claiming that all honey from that nation isn’t genuine and that “fake” honey companies must know that information lacks the specificity required in a legal complaint.
Attorney Jeffrey Miller — representing Dutch Gold Honey, one of the defendants — echoed some of the concerns raised by the judge. Miller pointed to the earlier complaint dismissed by the first judge, saying the “genuine” honey makers were told to return with specifics. Instead, they added phrasing to describe how honey is adulterated and gave no new information, he said.
“It’s all speculation,” he added.
The suit has different pieces of data, Miller said, but the only thing linking them is that speculation,
Miller said the suit references “audits,” “wire fraud” and “mail fraud.” However, it lists no details about them and instead is merely “a laundry list of things.”
Attacking one of the lab tests the lawsuit mentions, Miller said the test occurred in 2021. No day or month is included, and it’s unknown what kind of honey was tested or what type of lab tested it.
After the original suit was tweaked in 2021 and that second version was dismissed by the prior judge, a third version of the suit is now before Calabretta. Miller questioned if the judge would allow the “genuine” honey companies to again amend their complaint when little has changed in previous versions.
“I don’t feel like we’re much further along,” he said.
The judge didn’t say when he’d issue his ruling on the motion to dismiss.
“This is my current favorite case that I have,” he quipped at the hearing’s conclusion.
Subscribe to Closing Arguments
Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.
