Jia Wang Lin v. Can. Goose U.S., Inc.

• Decision Date: 14 November 2022
• Docket Number: 21 Civ. 7614 (LGS)
• Parties: JIA WANG LIN, Plaintiff, v. CANADA GOOSE US, INC., Defendant.
• Court: United States District Courts. 2nd Circuit. United States District Courts. 2nd Circuit. Southern District of New York

JIA WANG LIN, Plaintiff, v. CANADA GOOSE US, INC., Defendant.

No. 21 Civ. 7614 (LGS)

United States District Court, S.D. New York

November 14, 2022

OPINION AND ORDER

LORNA G. SCHOFIELD UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

Plaintiff Jia Wang Lin, individually and purportedly on behalf of all others similarly situated, brings this action alleging Defendant Canada Goose US, Inc. engaged in a campaign of deceptive marketing practices to sell their down-filled jackets. The Second Amended Complaint (the “SAC”) alleges: (1) violations of New York General Business Law (“NY GBL”) § 349, (2) violations of similar state consumer fraud laws, (3) unjust enrichment, (4) violations of the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Federal Trade Commission Improvement Act, 15 U.S.C. § 2301 et seq., (5) negligent misrepresentation, (6) breach of implied warranty of merchantability, (7) breach of implied warranty of fitness, and (8) breach of express warranty. Defendant moves to dismiss the SAC for lack of subject matter jurisdiction and failure to state a claim pursuant to Rule 12(b)(1) and Rule 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. For the reasons stated below, the motion to dismiss is granted.

I. BACKGROUND

A. Facts

The following facts are taken from the Complaint and are assumed to be true only for purposes of this motion. See R.M. Bacon, LLC v. Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics Corp., 959 F.3d 509, 512 (2d Cir. 2020).

Defendant is “a leading manufacturer of performance luxury apparel” and “manufactures winter clothing products . . . the majority of which contain down.” In or around 2019, Plaintiff purchased three of Defendant's down jackets, two for himself, a “Borden Bomber” and a “Wyndham Parka,” and one for his wife, a “Rossclair Parka.” Each jacket cost approximately $1,050.00 and was purchased at either Canada Goose's New York store at 101 Wooster Street, New York, NY 10012 or Saks Fifth Avenue at 611 5th Avenue, New York, NY 10022.

Plaintiff points to several of Defendant's statements that allegedly misled him about the quality of Defendant's jackets, all related to either the “fill power” of the jackets or the origin of the down used, including:

• Defendant “further misrepresented the nature of its ‘extreme' luxury product by suggesting that their jackets had a superior fill power as a result of containing or being comprised solely of Hutterite down.”

• From 2014 to 2020, Defendant claimed that “[o]ur down blends all contain Canadian Hutterite down, which is among the highest quality Canadian down available, enabling us to manufacture lighter jackets without sacrificing warmth.” (Emphasis removed).

• “Under the materials and care section of each item,” Defendant advertise[d] that “[o]ur down blends all contain Canadian Hutterite down, which is among the highest quality Canadian down available, enabling us to manufacture lighter jackets without sacrificing warmth.” (Emphasis removed).

Plaintiff asserts that “[t]he undue emphasis on the Hutterite origin of the down is materially misleading because the origin of the down in fact has no relationship to the down's fill power or thermal performance.” Plaintiff claims that “[t]his is not the first time that Canada Goose was fined for bogus claims about the nature of the Hutterite origin of its down,” citing a January 2021 Administrative Penalty Decision Letter issued by a Chinese regulator to the Shanghai subsidiary of Canada Goose.

As a result of these representations, Plaintiff and the purported other class members “paid substantial premiums of over $800.00 per jacket based on the false impression created by Defendant's advertising.”

B. Procedural History

Plaintiff commenced this action on September 12, 2021. On December 6, 2021, Plaintiff filed his Amended Complaint. On January 3, 2022, Defendant filed a pre-motion letter in anticipation of a motion to dismiss identifying several alleged deficiencies in the Amended Complaint, including Plaintiff's failure to identify whether he saw the allegedly misleading statements prior to purchasing Defendant's product. On January 7, 2022, Plaintiff responded to the pre-motion letter seeking leave to amend and responding to Defendant's arguments. On January 11, 2022, the Court granted leave to amend.

On February 1, 2022, Plaintiff filed the SAC seeking monetary damages and injunctive relief to halt Defendant's allegedly false marketing and sale of its down jackets. On March 9, 2022, Defendant moved to dismiss the SAC in its entirety.

II. STANDARD

A. Rule 12(b)(1)

An action is “properly dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction under Rule 12(b)(1) when the district court lacks the statutory or constitutional power to adjudicate it.” Citizens for Resp. & Ethics in Wash. v. Trump, 953 F.3d 178, 188 (2d Cir. 2019) (internal quotation marks omitted). When considering a Rule 12(b)(1) motion, “the district court must take all uncontroverted facts in the complaint . . . as true, and draw all reasonable inferences in favor of the party asserting jurisdiction.” Fountain v. Karim, 838 F.3d 129, 134 (2d Cir. 2016) (internal quotation marks omitted). “A plaintiff asserting subject matter jurisdiction has the burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence that it exists.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). A court must resolve whether it has subject matter jurisdiction before it considers the merits. See Rhulen Agency, Inc. v. Alabama Ins. Guar. Ass'n, 896 F.2d 674, 678 (2d Cir. 1990); accord Zappin v. Collazo, No. 19 Civ. 3781, 2020 WL 5646496, at *3 (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 22, 2020).

B. Rule 12(b)(6)

On a motion to dismiss, a court accepts as true all well-pleaded factual allegations and draws all reasonable inferences in favor of the non-moving party but does not consider “conclusory allegations or legal conclusions couched as factual allegations.” Dixon v. von Blanckensee, 994 F.3d 95, 101 (2d Cir. 2021) (internal quotation marks omitted). To withstand a motion to dismiss, “a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.'” Kaplan v. Lebanese Canadian Bank, SAL, 999 F.3d 842, 854 (2d Cir. 2021) (quoting Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009)). “Threadbare recitals of the elements of a cause of action, supported by mere conclusory statements, do not suffice.” Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678; accord Dane v. United Healthcare Ins. Co., 974 F.3d 183, 189 (2d Cir. 2020). It is not enough for a plaintiff to allege facts that are consistent with liability; the complaint must “nudge[] [plaintiff's] claims across the line from conceivable to plausible.” Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007); accord Bensch v. Est. of Umar, 2 F.4th 70, 80 (2d Cir. 2021). To survive dismissal, “plaintiffs must provide the grounds upon which [their] claim rests through factual allegations sufficient to raise a right to relief above the speculative level.” Rich v. Fox News Network, LLC, 939 F.3d 112, 121 (2d Cir. 2019) (alteration in original) (internal quotation marks omitted).

III. DISCUSSION

A. Standing

Defendant asserts that, because Plaintiff lacks standing, the Court lacks subject matter jurisdiction. See Kearns v. Cuomo, 981 F.3d 200, 207 (2d Cir. 2020). “To establish injury in fact, a plaintiff must show that he or she suffered ‘an invasion of a legally protected interest' that is ‘concrete and particularized' and ‘actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical.” Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 578 U.S. 330, 339 (2016); see TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, 141 S.Ct. 2190, 2200 (2021) (“To have Article III standing to sue in federal court, plaintiffs must demonstrate, among other things, that they suffered a concrete harm.”). A “particularized” injury “affect[s] the plaintiff in a personal and individual way.” Id. “A ‘concrete' injury must be ‘de facto'; that is, it must actually exist”; it must be “real,” and not “abstract.” Id. at 340.

“The plaintiff, as the party invoking federal jurisdiction, bears the burden of establishing these elements,” and, “at the pleading stage, the plaintiff must ‘clearly . . . allege facts demonstrating' each element.” Id. at 338 (quoting Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 518 (1975)). “That a suit may be a class action . . . adds nothing to the question of standing, for even named plaintiffs who represent a class ‘must allege and show that they personally have been injured, not that injury has been suffered by other, unidentified members of the class to which they belong.'” Spokeo, 578 U.S. at 338 n.6 (quoting Simon v. E. Ky. Welfare Rts. Org., 426 U.S. 26, 40 n.20 (1976)).

Defendant's challenge to standing fails in light of the SAC's allegations that Plaintiff purchased the Defendant's products in reliance on the alleged misrepresentations and that he “and the class members, paid substantial premiums of over $800.00 per jacket based on the false impression created by Defendant's advertising.” Allegations that a plaintiff suffered a financial injury by paying a premium for a product bearing an allegedly misleading label are sufficient to establish an injury-in-fact. See Langan v. Johnson & Johnson Consumer Cos., Inc., 897 F.3d 88, 92 (2d Cir. 2018); see also Colpitts v. Blue Diamond Growers, 527 F.Supp.3d 562, 575 (S.D.N.Y. 2021) (““[A]llegation[s] that a plaintiff would not have purchased a product or would not have paid the same amount comfortably satisfies the injury-in-fact prong of Article III standing.”) (evaluating NY GBL § 349 claim); DaCorta v. AM Retail Grp., Inc., No. 16 Civ. 1748, 2018 WL 557909, at *6 (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 23, 2018) (“The allegation that Plaintiff would not have made this purchase, or would not have paid the amount she did, is sufficient for Article III injury.” (citations and internal quotation marks omitted)); ...