1y ago

North Texas man sues Cinemark claiming 24-ounce beer cups can't hold 24 ounces

www.fox4news.com

A North Texas man has filed a class action lawsuit against Cinemark, claiming the movie theater chain is lying to customers about the size of its drinks.
Shane Waldrop claims that Cinemark's 24 ounce cups can only hold 22 ounces of liquid, according to the lawsuit filed in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.
On Feb. 14, Waldrop went to the Cinemark in Grapevine and purchased the 20 ounce and 24 ounce draft beer.
He noticed the 24 ounce cup did not appear to be big enough to hold 4 more ounces of liquid.
Waldrop took the empty container home and measured how much it could hold, discovering it only held 22 ounces.
Waldrop and his legal team says the movie theater chain is taking part in "deceptive" and "otherwise improper" business practices that violate state and federal laws about misbranding.
"This is especially misleading because the 24 oz drink should provide a deal for consumers over the 20 oz drink’s price: $0.37 per ounce vs. $0.39 per ounce. But due to the actual volume of 22 oz available in the ‘24 oz’ drink, the price is $0.40 per ounce making the larger drink more expensive per ounce, which is not a deal at all," reads the lawsuit.

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FenrirIII @lemmy.world

1y ago

North Texas man sues Cinemark claiming 24-ounce beer cups can't hold 24 ounces

www.fox4news.com /news/cinemark-cup-size-lawsuit-texas

News @lemmy.world

MicroWave @lemmy.world

1y ago

North Texas man sues Cinemark claiming 24-ounce beer cups can't hold 24 ounces

www.fox4news.com /news/cinemark-cup-size-lawsuit-texas

125 comments

I totally approve of these types of lawsuits.
- I do too, but I wonder what kind of mental problem that guy has to invest money in lawyer and court fees, plus tons of personal time, to get this going.
  
  The mental illness known as "tired of everyone getting fucked with no recourse"
  
  None, these types of cases barely ever go to trial, they will end with a settlement of which the lawyers will take a portion as compensation.
  
  The lawyer probably took the case on a contingent basis (doesn't get paid unless he wins), and the dude will probably get a fat check. That's not a mental problem, that's cashing in big on a corporate lie he discovered.
  
  I dunno, standards? Principles?
  Sometimes it's about that, not personal gain
  
  i guess a dash of autism.
  If anything this is a good example of how society would be worse off if everyone were neurotypical
  that or our hero is just bored and petty as fuck!
  
  The mental problem of wanting to earn a lot of money in a lawsuit. Mans gonna get three, maybe even four bucks outta this
  
  One of the many symptoms of autism is having a very strong sense of justice and demanding fairness in all things, sometimes to an obsessive degree. He's probably just one of us.
  
  Alcoholism
I'm still fascinated that "calibrated" glasses are not more common. In Germany, you won't get any beer without any markings where the volume is indicated.
https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C3%BCllstrich#/media/Datei%3AWeizenbier.jpg
- The US is a wild west of suggestions masquerading as regulations. If your ledger doesn't have room for the decimals places needed to record the fine, it's not a fine.
- Calibrated glasses are very on-brand for Germany.
  
  They are and are actually enforced by the EU: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32004L0022
- Some US states have some sort of department of weights and measures. I've contacted mine before about such issues and they take them very seriously, sending out an inspection team to test the claim. What they can do to enforce things depends on the state, though.
- Because capitalism...
  
  The free markets will figure it out!
In Canada a pint is a legal measurement of 20oz / 568ml
If you advertise beer on the menu as a pint, it must be at least 19.5oz excluding head(allowable margin of error)
What happens though is countless places advertise a pint, and then give you something like 16-18oz which is against the law.
It's gets harder tell what you're getting as well when they serve in non standard pint glasses, or glasses without a pint mark.
- bring your own pint glass. and a lawyer to every bar you go to. bam ez money
  
  Pay for your law degree this way then be the lawyer to save on costs! Travel the country for free indefinitely!
- This is something that happens every year at the Oktoberfest in Munich. Legally, the "Maß" should be 1l, but the standards office regularly measure the contents way below that mark, even if one allows for a certain margin of error.
- So the legal requirement in Canada is not an actual pint?
  
  It's a pint. Just not a US pint.
  
  An imperial pint is 20 fl oz, a US pint is 16 fl oz.
He did the math.
If this guy doesn't get a "we salute you" ad by the beer companies, there's no justice left in the world.
- 🎵 Mister every ounce of beer is precious man 🎵
  
  If the beer gets wasted, God gets quite irate
Godspeed.
Legit question: does the FDA do a weights and measures things for restaurants?
- Having owned, partly owned, or at least been very friendly with restaurant and bar owners...
  ...no, no they do not. Maybe they do if you end up on some radar or something, or get reported? But in general day to day and inspections, no.
  
  In the UK, and I suspect in other countries as well, you have to use the right cups and glasses for the right drinks. So for beer you will have to use the beer glass that the brewery provide. I don't think you can just go out and get any old cup from a shop and use that. You have to use the calibrated ones.
  
  Apologies, I should have been more specific. I meant does some sort of regulation or team or anything involving weights and measures exist at all for food service? Or is the only thing the theaters did "wrong" in this case false advertising?
  I understand enforcement for an FDA regulation/whatever may be lacking. I've worked in a restaurant and other food service related places before but I was young and pretty low level so I wasn't super tuned into the business side let alone laws/regulations outside of basic food handling.
- Nope (afaik)
No one will care. They will pay whatever fine, and pay whatever members of this class, and then they will keep doing the same shit.
- If they keep doing the same shit I’ll sue them again, citing their previous lawsuit and any injunctive relief ordered in the previous trial when presenting my case.
  
  They'll just call it something different and hide the size in small print. Or they'll increase the price so that the large is still $.40 per oz since people don't usually do the math these days and just assume larger things are a better deal. A lot of times they aren't anymore because companies don't care as much about selling a lot as they do about profit on the sale due to there not being much competition with all the consolidation.
Texas, land of justice
What if 22oz of beer (volume) WEIGHED 24oz (mass)?
- According to the website below, searching for "beer", 22 oz weighs 23.281 oz. So it's close!
  https://www.aqua-calc.com/calculate/food-volume-to-weight
- Wouldn't this mean that beer would need to be 8% more dense than water for this to work out? Quickly searching online, it seems like beer is more like 1% more dense than water, depending on the type of beer, so not sure this is possible.
  
  Wait, I thought ounces were weight but liquid ounces were volume, making this irrelevant?
- As a Brit, I find a lot of American units confusing but that makes my head hurt more than usual.
I wonder if they used to have bigger cups, changed suppliers, and didn't bother to update the menus
- That's actually my thought, though even if it was a mistake, it had to go through multiple people before the 22oz cup made it into this guys hand. I hope he wins
  
  I really don’t think the term “piss beer” is that literal
Yes! Do ISPs next!
Waldrop took the empty container home and measured how much it could hold, discovering it only held 22 ounces.
Bro really pulled out the scientific instruments and everything 😭
- Yes, scientific instruments like measuring cups
  
  _{i'mjusttryingtobefunny} _TwT
That old thing where they stopped dispensing 24 oz of beer and some idiot decided not to buy 24 oz cups anymore to save more money.
I'm usually against frivolous cases like this over nothing, but if he actually did measure that it's impossible to hold 24 oz in a cup labeled that way, then he does have a good case. I think the case would be more on the supplier that provides the cups to Cinemark though, and less on the theater that's taking the word of the supplier.
- This is only frivolous if you think of it as being about 2 ounces of beer. Its not. Its about hundreds of thousands of people paying for something that they did not recieve. When you add it all up its quite a lot of stolen money! Also its absolutely Cinemark's fault, even assuming they were given the wrong cups by the distributor (which is a bad assumption) its on Cinemark to make sure they are providing what they claim they are.
  
  There’s also no way they were unaware it was happening. They track sales and inventory, when there’s consistently ~8% too much beer someone knows about it.
- Not frivolous
- I think the case would be more on the supplier that provides the cups to Cinemark though
  That's a matter for Cinemark and their supplier to sort out (either through discussion or another lawsuit). This man had a contract with the vendor (Cinemark) which is why he's suing them.
He really needed those last 2 ounces of beer
- If the amount I’m being priced for is that amount and you short me? Fuck yeah. We should never be ok with not getting what we paid for. There’s too much shrinkflation and deception.
  
  Yeah I'm with you, 2oz is nice big drink, if they're saying it's 24oz it needs to be at least 24oz.
- Do you really need the last 8% of the pay that you earned?

125 comments