Some people really just want their just desserts.
In the latest candy-box controversy, a California woman has filed a lawsuit against Just Born Quality Confections -- the company that sells Mike and Ike candies, as well as Hot Tamales -- because according to her, it "falsely and deceptively" misrepresents just how much candy actually comes in every box.
Yikes.
Stephanie Escobar claims that when she bought a box of Mike and Ike at a movie theater, with the intent to snack merrily away on the candy during the feature film, she was upset to discover that her candy box was really only filled up about 54 percent with candy.
She claimed that the rest of the space in the box was just "slack-fill," which is the nonfunctional or empty space left in the package.
Had she known that the box was not going to be filled up with the candy, as the nutritional label and the size of the actual candy box would have lead her to believe, she never would have paid the $4 that it cost.
Escobar then decided to conduct her own private investigation; was her empty box a fluke or not? As it happens, she discovered that both Mike and Ike and Hot Tamales candy boxes were filled with 46 percent air, when that space should be somewhat occupied by candy.
Escobar sued Just Born for violating California's false advertising law, the consumers legal remedies act and the unfair competition law; she hopes that the company undergoes changes to its selling and marketing campaigns, and also wants a monetary refund on "behalf of all other purchasers of this particular product," according to Time.
"From the perspective of our client alone, there's not a lot at issue, but from the perspective of the defendant manufacturer, and the fact that they can save roughly 50% of food supply cost in every box they sell, it results in a windfall to the manufacturer," Ryan Clarkson, Escobar's attorney on the case, said.
What do you think?