Overview
As we have reported on before, a putative class action filed against Quicktrim, LLC and its celebrity spokespeople, the Kardashians of reality television fame, seeks to hold the Kardashians liable for deceptive marketing of the Quicktrim weight loss product. In an amended complaint filed today, the plaintiffs claim that Quicktrim is nothing but a caffeine pill, and the Kardashians have personally marketed it with their own web sites and even tweets, which direct readers to links to buy the product.
The complaint alleges that Quicktrim
is marketed by the Defendants as a clinically proven formula that will increase metabolism, curb appetite, and promote weight loss. In fact, QuickTrim’s main ingredient is a large dose of caffeine, which the FDA has determined is not a safe or effective treatment for weight control. QuickTrim’s caffeine pills are mixed with a variety of herbal ingredients that have never been clinically proven as effective treatments for weight loss or appetite suppression. Because they are ineffective for their intended purposes, QuickTrim products have no value. They are worthless. Defendants have marketed QuickTrim through a multimedia advertising campaign featuring reality TV star Kim Kardashian and her sisters, Khloe Kardashian-Odom and Kourtney Kardashian, whose images adorn QuickTrim’s labels and nearly every advertisement for the product. The Kardashians claim to have formulated and tested QuickTrim “to make sure that this was something that really works.” They sell the products directly through their own websites. They also solicit sales of the products through their Twitter accounts, by disseminating “tweets” hawking QuickTrim, which direct recipients to websites where the products are purchased.The plaintiffs had agreed to withdraw their original complaint during a telephonic conference before Judge Marrero on June 14, in order to address deficiencies pointed out in the defendants' motions to dismiss.