Tag Archives omissions

To state an omission-based MMPA claim in federal court, a plaintiff may not rely on generic allegations that a defendant failed to disclose an alleged product defect. Nor may a plaintiff rely on prior consumer complaints as the basis for alleging that a defendant concealed a material fact. That’s the lesson from Johnsen v. Honeywell International Inc., No. 4:14CV594 RLW, 2016 WL 1242545 (E.D. Mo. Mar. 29, 2016). In that case, plaintiff claimed that Honeywell’s representations about its humidifiers’ quality, along with a five-year warranty, amounted to an actionable “unfair practice” under the MMPA where the humidifiers allegedly broke down repeatedly. On March 29, 2016, the Eastern District of Missouri ruled on defendant Honeywell International’s Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss plaintiff’s complaint, holding that bare allegations that defendants “knew, or reasonably should have known” that their products contained some defect and that they “concealed and failed to disclose such alleged…