Nick Prestigiacomo
Prof. Brush
Business Law

You Be The Judge: Consumer Law

In the bustling business world, daily use of misleading and unlawful actions are practiced in hopes of achieving success. From these practices, many negative repercussions are unfortunately the outcome. In this You Be The Judge case, Mr. Johnson is suing Mr. Dencell, the owner of a local cafe, for negligence that may have been responsible for the death of his grandfather, caused by Pulmonary Artery Disease. Prior to his death, it is known that Mr. Johnson’s grandfather ate at Mr. Duncell’s cafe as often as five days a week, supposedly ordering strictly off the “healthy choices” menu offered by Mr. Dencell. However, although Mr. Johnson’s grandfather did order from this menu, his food was prepare unhealthily by the means of being fried. From these facts, Mr. Dencell is being questioned for the use of false advertisement, as the plaintiff is claiming that this menu is in fact not healthy. Consumer laws are in place to protect the consumer against any misleading and unlawful actions conduct by a particular business. More specially, the Federal Trade Act was put in place to regulate unfair or deceptive acts or practice by businesses. These laws are specifically regulated by a special bureau of the Federal Trade Commission, known as the Bureau of Consumer Protection. In order to determine if an advertisement is deceptive or not, the Federal Trade Commission has two main criteria in which they take into consideration. If an advertisement expresses or implies a claim that does not have proof of truth, then it is considered to be deceptive. With this, if the unproven expressed or implied information leaves impressions that effects the consumers decision in purchasing that product, it can also be determined to be deceptive. In order to determine a ruling, these reasonings should be applied in regards to this case to determine if there was any misrepresentation. Specifically to the way in which the defendant represents his food. On the menu, Mr. Dencell offers food to be prepared in two different fashions: fried and baked. In no form does the menu directly represent ones individual personal health. This should be enough to satisfy the first contingency that there was no misrepresentation on his menu. The menu also does not specify in any regards that fried foods are in fact the healthy choice. As such, no nutritional information was blatantly published in regards to the offered menu items offered. Mr. Dencell never had the intention on misleading his customers. However, does Mr. Dencell’s representation of his menu directly effect the choice of his customers? With no misrepresentation that fried foods are the healthy choice, Mr. Dencell advertisement does not effect the choices or behaviors of his customers. Due to this