• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Advertise
  • About Craft Brewing Business

Craft Brewing Business

Professional Insight, Unfiltered

  • News
  • Business & Marketing
  • Ingredients & Supplies
  • Packaging & Distribution
  • Equipment
  • Webinars & White Papers
  • COVID-19

Greedy Massachusetts duo loses contaminated Bourbon County stout lawsuit thanks to some savvy business tactics from Goose Island

June 19, 2018Keith Gribbins

Long Goose Island LogoBack in 2015, Goose Island Beer Co.’s famed Bourbon County brand had a recall. Four of the six Bourbon County releases developed unfortunate off-flavors due to Lactobacillus acetotolerans. In a classy move, Goose Island offered refunds for those four beers — even though there were no real health issues. In 2017, after the refund period had elapsed, two dudes from Massachusetts (Scott Kaplan and Jeff Roach) filed a lawsuit, claiming many, many things (which you can read here) but basically that the 2015 Bourbon County beers subject to the contamination did not meet the quality and standards advertised by Goose Island and that they did not get their refunds.

Kaplan spent around $196 and Roach around $600 on their Bourbon Country misadventures. Rather then wrangle in court, Goose Island sent these guys $8,000 (a check for $3,000 and $5,000 respectively). In a poor decision, the two passed on the $8,000 in order to move forward on a class action lawsuit. In May, a U.S. District Court judge ruled that the two Massachusetts men did not have a case because Goose Island had actually given them the maximum amount recoverable under the Massachusetts statute, plus additional funds to cover court costs and attorney fees. It was a clever move from Goose Island. From the Libation Law Blog that has an awesome article on the case:

Those of you following the ongoing evolution of class action cases know that there’s a particular strategy of reimbursing or paying damages to individual plaintiffs before class actions are certified that has been percolating through the circuits. Basically, in some cases it’s possible to defeat a class action by paying the individual plaintiffs what they’re owed, or the maximum of what they could possibly recover individually, thereby mooting their claims which results in their inability to prosecute not only their individual actions but also to stake a larger claim as representatives of a class.

Well played.

sales idea lightbulb
The 25 best craft beer sales and marketing ideas in 2020
questions
Did you take the Craft Brewing Business Survey? You can win stuff, ya know
CBB-remote-expo-logo
CBB’s Remote Craft Brewery Expo: All the new products, services you would have seen at BrewEXPO 2020
craft beer technology news and apps
Better manage your brewery memberships with this nifty CraftCellr update

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Primary Sidebar

Latest News

  • Mass. Franchise Law UPDATE: Judge denies Atlantic’s injunction, Jack’s Abby heads to arbitration
  • Georgia’s StillFire Brewing is now accepting Bitcoin
  • Check out Briess’ new website, then enjoy this Journey of Malt video series, showing how barley goes from seed to malt
  • Pro Refrigeration is designing a CO2-based Chiller System

Sign up for our newsletter

unsubscribe from list

Most Popular Today

Recent Features

  • brewing lawsuitMass. Franchise Law UPDATE: Judge denies Atlantic’s injunction, Jack’s Abby heads to arbitration
    April 8, 2021
  • Check out Briess’ new website, then enjoy this Journey of Malt video series, showing how barley goes from seed to malt
    April 8, 2021
  • beer healthy glass dumbell working out excercise-001The Beer Flow: better-for-you beer growing, tap volume climbing and RTDs accelerating
    April 6, 2021
  • craft beer sales trendCraft beer sales trends in March: Sours, 16-ouncers trending up, says Tavour
    April 6, 2021
  • Growler-decisionsWatch: Rep. Jim Nash interviews Minnesota craft breweries, shedding light on the state’s useless growler sales cap
    April 5, 2021
  • Brewers Space Guild launches today, pick up some merch
    April 1, 2021

Footer

  • Email Newsletter Sign Up
  • About Craft Brewing Business
  • Contact Us
  • Advertise on Craft Brewing Business
  • Media Kit Download
  • Privacy and Terms

© 2021 · CBB Media LLC

Continue ...

sponsored by