As ConAgra Moves To Have The Complaint Against Its Hebrew National Brand Dismissed, Plaintiffs File New, Amended Complaint

As ConAgra moves to dismiss the suit against it and its Hebrew National brand, the plaintiffs filed a new, amended complaint. Does this class action lawsuit have legs?

As ConAgra moves to dismiss the suit against it and its Hebrew National brand, the plaintiffs filed a new, amended complaint. Does this class action lawsuit have legs?

No.

As I noted previously, don't think that it does, and the amended complaint does nothing to convince me otherwise. In fact, the opposite is true.

I just skimmed both the new amended complaint and ConAgra's motion to dismiss which were posted by the American Jewish World yesterday.

The plaintiff's attorney completely misunderstands halakha. He clearly knows nothing about it, and the complaint he drafted consistently misrepresents what Jewish law actually says about these issues.

I believe that a man named Moshe Gitt, who was fired by AER, the company that employs the shochtim, bodkim and mashgichim used to slaughter the meat used to produce many Hebrew National meat products, after making a series of errors that cost ConAgra a lot of money, is probably providing the halakhic 'expertise' for the plaintiffs' attorney. Gitt sued AER and lost decisively, and I'm told by a source intimately familiar with the situation who dislikes AER's owner and management, and dislikes Triangle-K's Rabbi Ralbag even more, that Gitt did in fact make a series of mistakes, some of which were based on his idea that he could make halakhic decisions that he was not qualified or employed to make.

Basically, the suit comes down to this: a small number of current and former AER employees claim that AER and Ralbag do not consistently follow the rules of kosher slaughter.

While Ralbag denies this, he makes the point that even if the specific examples given by these anonymous people to the plaintiffs' attorney were true, the meat would still be kosher. And he appears to be correct.

II don't think the plaintiffs have a chance under Jewish law or under American civil law.

That is not meant to be an endorsement of Hebrew National or of AER or Ralbag's Triangle-K.

It's just meant to point out that whoever advised the plaintiffs' attorney about halakha is either wholly dishonest, an ignoramus, or both.

Previous Posts About The Hebrew National Scandal.

Comments

[Jill]

As ConAgra moves to dismiss the suit against it and its Hebrew National brand, the plaintiffs filed a new, amended complaint. Does this class action lawsuit have legs?

I don't think so.

[rebitzman]

I concur - this is simply at run at a company who has grabbed a lot of market share and needs to be stopped (in the eyes of other producers of fine kosher beef bi-products shoved into a tube) at all costs,

[Robin Clare]

I think 'misunderstanding' is the key to most of the world's problems that we try to solve with litigation.

If we could sit down and really understand each other, we wouldn't have these types of situations to deal with.

[Eli, what me messiah?]

Remember, though, that the complaint tried to sidestep this problem by focusing on quality and whether the "highest standards of Orthodox Jews" had been applied. As I think I commented back then, this seemed a tactic to broaden the number of potential plaintiffs in the class, potentially even to include non-Jews who bought Hebrew National because they thought the "highest standards" was a guarantee of higher quality.
But, yeah, I agree with everyone else. This ain't got no legs. The plaintiffs' lawyers tried to turn a labor case into a class action and didn't think through how they would prove their claims.

[FirstGenerationBavarianAmerican]

I think this is more a subject for a law blog focusing on fake class action lawsuits than for a religious blog.