• July 2, 2012

Alcoholism is a terrible and destructive illness and a critical step to recovery is recognizing that one suffers from it.  Sometimes, it is said, a person has to “hit bottom” before he recognizes he has a problem.

The expression is a little off, however.  Hitting bottom is dying.  No matter how much alcoholics have harmed their lives (and those who love them), they can fall still further (or, one hopes, can still recover), until they are dead.

So, when should you conclude that you have hit “rock bottom”?  Maybe it is when you sue Rock Bottom Brewery after having drunk $5,000 worth of beer, being given a prize 36-ounce beer stein (which you get to fill with beer for the price of a pint (16 oz.) of beer and which you have done thousands of times), and then you sue Rock Bottom, under new ownership, when the establishment swaps out your 36 oz. stein for a 22 oz. stein so you only get 6 extra ounces of beer with every pour rather than 20 extra ounces with every pour?   Maybe it’s time to get help then?

In all seriousness, Minnesota Litigator is in no position to cast the thirst stone and obviously takes no position as to whether the plaintiffs in the putative class action before U.S. District Court Judge John R. Tunheim (D. Minn.) have drinking problems.

But their proposed class action definitely has serious problems.  Judge Tunheim issued a stone-cold sober dismissal of their proposed class action this past week.

On defendant’s motion to dismiss, the Court held that the plaintiffs “failed to plausibly plead” that they consumed their breath-taking amounts of beer in reliance on a purported promise of 20 oz. beer-boosts in perpetuity as opposed to 6 oz. ones nor could plaintiffs plausibly plead that Rock Bottom, under new management, had somehow intentionally tricked them into their sad predicament (that is, getting a mere 30% beer-boost rather than then the 125% beer boost they had enjoyed for their first 5,000 stein-fulls (which they had “earned,” incidentally, by drinking 1,100 beers (“a beer tour”)).

Plaintiffs were represented by the Consumer Justice Center, “dedicated to the rights of consumers” (of beer and beef, at least).

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