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PORTSIDE CULTURE

LAWSUIT OVER POLAND SPRING’S ‘NATURAL SPRING WATER’ LABEL MOVES
FORWARD  
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Eric Russell
January 2, 2025
Portland Press Herald
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_ A Connecticut judge ruled that the lawsuit claiming Poland Spring
mislabeled its water and deceptively marketed it can go forward. _

Packaged bottles of Poland Spring water are on a conveyor belt in the
Hollis facility in 2016. , Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Portland Press
Herald

 

A long-running lawsuit involving claims that Poland Spring water has
been falsely labeled and deceptively marketed will continue after a
Connecticut judge this week denied the parent company’s latest
request to throw out the case.

In a detailed and often technical 61-page ruling issued Monday, U.S.
District Court Judge Jeffrey Alker Meyer rejected some claims in the
class action suit originally brought by 11 plaintiffs in August 2017
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But Meyer said the issue of whether Poland Spring qualifies as
“spring water” under laws in several states, including Maine,
remains unsettled.

It wasn’t immediately clear Wednesday what would happen next with
the case. Lawyers for both sides did not respond to messages.

The suit was filed against Nestle Waters North America, Inc., the
former parent company of Poland Spring, which sold that brand and
others for $4.3 billion three years ago
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popular brand founded in Maine more than a century ago is now owned by
Tampa, Florida-based Primo Brands, but the water is still sourced from
numerous locations in western Maine, according to the company.

The company employs hundreds of workers at bottling plants in Poland,
Hollis and Kingfield but has sometimes faced local criticism about
its business practices
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In the original lawsuit, plaintiffs alleged that “not one drop” of
Poland Spring’s bottled water came from a natural spring, and that
the actual Poland Spring in Maine “ran dry” long before Nestle
bought the brand in 1992. The water, plaintiffs alleged, was nothing
more than “ordinary groundwater” from wells. Further, they said
the company was deceiving them into overpaying with labels that
claimed its bottles contained “100% Natural Spring Water.”

Nestle Waters has called the lawsuit “meritless” from the start
and has filed motions for summary judgment to dismiss the case on
three separate occasions. In each, the judge has sided with the
company on some points but has refused to dismiss the case fully.

Following this week’s ruling, Judge Alker said there are still
several claims pending alleging violations of state fair trade
practices acts in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York,
Pennsylvania, Maine, New Hampshire and Rhode Island.

According to Alker’s ruling, geologists hired by Nestle in each of
the states argued that the company complied with a U.S. Food and Drug
Administration rule defining spring water and concluded that each
state authorized its sale as “spring water.”

Experts hired by the plaintiffs, meanwhile, said Nestle appeared to
use man-made springs and extracted pond water and other surface water,
rather than true spring water.

The remaining plaintiffs are seeking damages, but also an injunction
that would prevent the company from marketing Poland Spring water as
“spring water” in the future.

Nestle Waters faced a similar lawsuit in 2003 when consumers alleged
that the company’s advertising suggested that the water in Poland
Spring came from a source deep in the woods of Maine when, in fact,
the principal source was located near a parking lot.

That suit was settled with Nestle offering about $8 million in
consumer discounts and more than $2 million in charitable donations.

* false advertising
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* Nestle
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* Poland Spring water
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