Sharel Mawby v. Folgers Coffee Marketing

Date: 11-27-2025

Case Number: 23-cv-00226

Judge: Marcia Nupp

Court: United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri (Jackson County)

Plaintiff's Attorney:

Defendant's Attorney:

Description: Kansas City, Missouri, consumer law class action lawyers represented the Plaintiff who sued on a Missouri Merchandising Practices Act and unjust enrichment.

Missouri resident Mark Smith bought containers of Folgers coffee that featured
representations about the number of six-ounce cups that the coffee in each container
could produce. Believing the representations to be misleading at best and downright
false at worse, Smith, on behalf of himself and others similarly situated to him, sued
the Folger Coffee Company and its corporate parent, the J.M. Smucker Company. For-2
the sake of simplicity we will refer to the defendants as “Folgers.” Smith claimed that
Folgers had violated the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act, see Mo. Rev. Stat.
§ 407.020.1, and claimed that Folgers was unjustly enriched at his expense.

Smith’s lawsuit is one of several similar suits brought against Folgers around
the country that the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation transferred to the U.S.
District Court for the Western District of Missouri for pretrial proceedings. See 28
U.S.C. § 1407(a). After the district court appointed interim class counsel at the
parties’ behest, the parties filed a consolidated class complaint and later moved to
certify six separate statewide classes led by different class representatives. They
proposed that Smith represent a class of people who bought certain Folgers products
“in Missouri for personal, family, or household purposes” after a specific date. The
district court, without objection from the parties, decided that it would consider
whether to certify the Missouri class before considering whether to certify classes
involving purchases made in other states

Outcome: The district court, over Folgers’s objection, certified a class for Smith to represent, and Folgers, with our permission, see Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(f), appealed that decision.

The Circuit Court agreed with Folgers that the class was improperly certified, and so it reversed and remanded.

Plaintiff's Experts:

Defendant's Experts:

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