MonaVie Can’t Escape Consumer Fraud Class Action Lawsuit

Top Class Actions’s website and social media posts use affiliate links. If you make a purchase using such links, we may receive a commission, but it will not result in any additional charges to you. Please review our Affiliate Link Disclosure for more information.

Earlier this week, MonaVie Inc.’s motion to dismiss a consumer fraud class action lawsuit was denied by a New Jersey federal judge who ruled that the plaintiff could sufficiently support her allegations against the superfood juice manufacturer.

Lead plaintiff Lisa Pontrelli filed this MonaVie class action lawsuit in August of last year, alleging that the company was profiting from a pyramid scheme built on false advertising of their fake health drinks. The MonaVie products are manufactured and distributed in wine-like bottles and sold for an allegedly overpriced value of $45 for every 25 ounce MonaVie juice bottle.

According to Pontrelli’s consumer fraud class action lawsuit, MonaVie allegedly advertised its superfood juice as a treatment for multiple health problems and would also provide the consumer with better skin, thus overstating the efficacy of the acai berry and other fruits contained in the MonaVie juice. Pontrelli claims that she and other consumers did not experience any of the allegedly advertised benefits from consuming MonaVie products.

Pontrelli further alleges that the creator of MonaVie juice, Dallin Larsen, has been involved in several pyramid schemes in the past and including the marketing and selling of a similar “superjuice” Royal Tongan Limu. This supposed “health” drink was recently banned from the food market by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and all remaining bottles of the product were dumped in a landfill.

Additionally, the chief scientist who allegedly designed MonaVie juice has gone on record describing the MonaVie product as “expensive flavored water,” and that any health claims made in MonaVie’s marketing and advertisements are “purely hypothetical, unsubstantiated and, quite frankly, bogus[.]”

According the MonaVie class action lawsuit, Larsen and his company allegedly profit through a pyramid scheme business model, in which the juice is sold by independent distributors who have to pay initial fees before they are even allowed to sell the MonaVie juice.

MonaVie attempted to have the class action lawsuit dismissed, arguing that Pontrelli did not provide enough details to support her claim that MonaVie violated the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act. However, U.S. District Judge William Martini disagreed and ruled that the plaintiff had, in fact, sufficiently argued her case.

According to Judge Martini’s denial of MonaVie’s motion to dismiss the consumer fraud class action lawsuit:

“Plaintiff [Pontrelli] identified the ‘what’ and ‘when’ components by specifically listing which MonaVie Products were at issue during the period of 2005 through the present and during the class period of July 2007 through the present. The Plaintiff sufficiently alleges the ‘where’ component by identifying the advertising and marketing of the MonaVie Products in New Jersey. Finally, the Plaintiff demonstrates ‘how’ the Defendants misrepresented their product by presenting the Defendants’ claims regarding the alleged health benefits of the açai berry and other fruits contained in MonaVie Products. For the purposes of the instant motion, the Plaintiff has satisfied the Rule 9(b) pleading standard.”

Based on Judge Martini’s ruling, the MonaVie consumer fraud class action lawsuit will continue to see future litigation.

Lisa Pontrelli is represented by Donald A. Beshada of Beshada Farnese LLP.

The MonaVie Consumer Fraud Class Action Lawsuit is Lisa Pontrelli v. Mona Vie Inc., Case No. 2:13-cv-04649, in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey.