Consumer Class Actions in New York - New York City Bar Association

cases involving fraudulent material omissions). When a defendant=s advertisements
contain materially misleading omissions, justifying a presumption of reliance, a class should
be certified; individual issues of reliance do not exist. Ackerman, 683 N.Y.S.2d at 192, citing
Weinberg, 116 A.D.2d at 7, Brandon, 106 A.D.2d at 167.
Under GBL '350, if a case is not based on material omissions, the reliance
requirement is a frequent barrier to certification of a class. In Small v. Lorillard, plaintiff
argued that defendants lied in their advertisements about nicotine=s addictive properties
and the fact that they were manipulating the nicotine content of their products in order to
cause consumers to become addicted to cigarettes. 252 A.D.2d at 4. The court refused to
presume reliance, stating:
Reliance on defendants= misrepresentations will not be
presumed where plaintiffs had a reasonable opportunity to
discover the facts about the transaction beforehand by using
ordinary intelligence . . . or where a variety of factors could
have influenced a class members decision to purchase. Only
when defendants effectively controlled all the information about
the transaction will the existence of misrepresentations give
rise to an inference of reliance without need for further proof.
Small at 8, citing King v. Club Med, 76 A.D.2d at 27; Stellema v. Vantage Press, 109
A.D.2d at 424 (citation omitted). In Small, A[p]laintiff=s claim of ignorance [was] implausible
in light of years of pre-1994 press coverage of research on nicotine addiction, as well as
the well-known difficulty of quitting smoking. . . . This widely available information about
nicotine forecloses any presumption of reliance and requires individualized inquiry into
whether particular class members were unaware of such information.@ Id. at 9-10.
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