There's mountains, and then there's molehills

I like Reese's Peanut Butter Cups as much as the next guy. After all, it combines two of my favorite food items: peanut butter and chocolate. What's not to like (even if the peanut butter doesn't actually taste like real peanut butter, at least not any brand I use)? 

And if I bought one of Reese's seasonal offerings - say, the Halloween pumpkin edition - I really wouldn't care if, when I opened the wrapper, the piece of candy I uncovered didn't look like a grinning jack-o'-lantern. Even if that grinning jack-o'-lantern was what was depicted on the wrapper. As long as I got the key ingredients - a chocolate something-or-other full of peanut butter.  

But I'm not Cynthia Kelly, a Florida woman who is suing Hershey's - maker of Reese's - for $5 million, through a class action suit, because she feels she was tricked into buying the "cute looking" candies, withe their "artistic designs," lured by a bogus picture on the bag. The pumpkins, she claimed, were:

...falsely advertised since the actual treats don’t have details seen on the packaging, like mouths and eyes... 

She submitted photos that compared the chocolate to the packaging. “Reese’s, what are you doing,” the lawsuit reads. “Look at the picture on the packet. It’s like a pumpkin with faces and a little mouth—then you open up the packet and you are presented with that monstrosity.” (Source: Yahoo)

Not that I looked all that hard for a jpg of it, but "that monstrosity" looked like an uncarved pumpkin. But, to Cynthia Kelly, it was $5M worth of aggrievement. (The Yahoo article, btw, reported that Kelly was seeking $5B worth of damages. As in $5 BILLION. But the correct - but still mountain-out-of-mole-ish amount - is $5 MILLION. And it's not clear whether a judge will accept this case.)

According to some of those commenting on the articles I've seen, the fine print on the packaging states that the purchaser needs to do the carving to get the cute little face. But who reads the fine print on candy packaging? And, truly, who has the time, interest, and skillset to carve a face in a Reese's pumpkin? Even if you have the toolset - in my case, that would be a lobster pick, trying to carve the small squishy Reese's pumpkin surface would result in a tortured mess, far uglier than Cynthia Kelly's "monstrosity." But is this issue worth $5M?

FFS.

Yes, the packaging is a bit deceptive, but the normal reaction should be rolling your eyes and proceeding to bite in. Whether there's a cute little face on the piece of candy or not, it all ends up in the same place in your stomach, no? In fact, it can be argued that, absent the carve outs, you actually get more chocolate. 

The level of harm isn't even equivalent to what someone would experience upon buying a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken only to take the lid of and realize that the bucket is NOT overflowing - filled to way beyond the brim - with gorgeous, greasy KFC drumsticks. 

Surely, there are more important things to fight for. 

Not so fast, says attorney Anthony Russo, who's bringing the suit on behalf of Kelly and every other duped Reese's buyer in the state of Florida.  

"Today, it's a $2 item — tomorrow it's your vehicle, the next day it's your home," he told NPR. "It could be your life savings or your nest egg that you're saving for your retirement. It could be anything if it is not kept under control." (Source: NPR)

First, they came for your candy money, then they're killing your 401K.

Yet again, FFS!!!

Aren't there more worthy causes that Russo's firm could be working on, rather than tying up the courts with this nonsense? 

Guess so!

Russo's firm is also representing the plaintiffs in a class action suit against Burger King, claiming that the company uses misleading advertising to represent its food items as larger than they are.

Hold the pickle, hold the lettuce!

Whatever happened to caveat emptor?