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.

  • yeather
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    8 months ago

    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.

    • nilloc@discuss.tchncs.de
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      8 months ago

      Yup lawyers who take these kinds of cases that are easy wins, do it on contingency. If they don’t think you have a good case they tell you, and then charge you hourly.

      • trolololol@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        I’m missing understanding some things here, but how much is the case about to handout in money? And shouldn’t the guy here split it between himself and lawyers?

        • yeather
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          8 months ago

          Depends on what the guy and the cinema agree upon to make this go away. Usually the lawyers will take 30-40% of a settlement.

            • yeather
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              8 months ago

              Everything the cinema did can be considered fraud and false advertising. Potentially millions if they play it right.

              • intensely_human@lemm.ee
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                8 months ago

                Or it might come down to that one particular theater was using different cups that one day because they were out of the regular cups

                • AtariDump@lemmy.world
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                  8 months ago

                  Then it’s false advertising having a 24oz cup size on the sign and serving 22oz of beer.

                  You wouldn’t like it if you pumped 10 gallons of gas, were charged for 10 gallons of gas, but only received 9.75 gallons.

    • Hildegarde@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Judges decide the law, juries decide the facts. Juries are only needed if there is a material dispute of the facts. I doubt this case would have a jury even if it didn’t end in a settlement.

      • yeather
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        8 months ago

        My apologies, go to trial is the term.

    • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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      8 months ago

      And by “a portion”, they mean “the entire thing”: the average member of the class will be lucky to get a check worth the time it takes to deposit it.

      • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        I was a member of a class action suit once.

        I think I got about 50 dollars over the course of two payouts. Which was significantly more than my “damages”, so I was happy.

        What made me less happy was they printed the checks on these non-standard size or material cards, so my bankat the time gave me a hell of a time trying to deposit the 100% non-standard sized or material check.

      • bjorney
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        8 months ago

        The plaintiff(s) in a class action usually gets a pretty decent chunk - substantially more than the class members because they are the one’s doing all the work on the class’s behalf

        The payout for class members depends on the number of people who sign up, which generally depends on the burden of proof. If you need to provide a receipt the payout is generally much higher because it gets split up fewer ways. I’ve gotten class action payouts as high as $300 when all I had to do was dig up through my bank records to find out the date of a transaction, and as low as $2, when all I had to do was click a link and enter my email address