The Hershey Co. has placed a blunt new line on packages of Reese’s Peanut Butter Pumpkins: “Carving not on actual product.” The small-print notice sits beside an image of a pumpkin-shaped candy marked with jack-o'-lantern eyes and a mouth, and it arrives after a Miami federal judge threw out a proposed class-action over that same packaging look.
FOX Business reported that the disclaimer now appears in small text on the front and back of the packaging and replaces earlier language that court documents described as “Decorating Suggestion.” Product images on the official Hersheyland website show the updated wording next to the carved pumpkin graphic.
The change tracks a legal fight that never reached a jury on the merits. Two Florida consumers, Nathan Vidal and Eduardo Granados, brought a proposed class-action claiming the pictured carvings were not on the candy they bought. They said they purchased the seasonal treats for the “novelty” of “cool and beautiful carved-out designs.” U.S. District Judge Melissa Damian in Miami dismissed the case after finding they lacked legal standing to claim they overpaid.
Damian did not rule that the candy tasted different or failed as a product. She focused on injury under the law. Accepting the plaintiffs’ allegations as true for purposes of the motion, she still found their claimed harm too thin to keep the suit alive.
The judge wrote that the only injury alleged was personal letdown, not a product that lost its value.
"Accepting plaintiffs’ allegations as true, it is clear that their only injury is their subjective disappointment"
She went further on the economic theory the consumers advanced. They had argued they paid as much as 25 percent more for the products because of the packaging imagery. Damian rejected that claim and stressed what the complaint did not say about the candy itself.
"Plaintiffs do not allege that the Hershey’s Reese’s Peanut Butter Pumpkins that they purchased were defective or worthless or that they lost all economic value because of the absence of the decorative carvings."
In short, disappointment at missing jack-o'-lantern faces did not equal a cognizable overpayment injury in her courtroom. Standing failed. The proposed class-action ended at that gate.
Reuters reported that Hershey argued in court filings that its packaging already described the pictured carvings as a “decorating suggestion.” That phrase, per court documents referenced in the coverage, is the language the company has now swapped out for the sharper “Carving not on actual product” line.
The sequence matters for anyone watching consumer suits over seasonal candy art. Hershey first defended the older wording as a suggestion, not a promise. After the dismissal, shoppers browsing Hersheyland images see an explicit carve-out disclaimer instead. FOX Business noted it reached out to The Hershey Co. for comment. No response appears in that report.
Reuters also reported that Damian dismissed an earlier version of the lawsuit last September. The more recent dismissal of the proposed class-action came last month, again according to that wire coverage folded into the FOX Business account. Absolute calendar years for those milestones were not stated in the material provided.
James Kelly, the attorney for Vidal and Granados, said his clients were disappointed with the ruling and planned to appeal. He cast the outcome as a consumer-protection gap in Florida rather than a narrow standing problem.
Kelly put the complaint this way:
"Consumers [in Florida] deserve to get what they pay for, and it is troubling to see them left without protection,"
That is advocacy, not a finding. The court record, as described, turned on whether subjective disappointment and a rejected 25 percent premium theory created standing to sue for overpayment. Damian said they did not. An appeal would have to persuade a higher court that the injury theory should have survived.
Investigators and courts in these packaging cases typically need to determine what the label actually promised, whether a reasonable buyer would treat seasonal artwork as a guarantee of molded features, and whether any price premium can be proven rather than asserted. Here, the trial judge held the pleadings did not clear the standing bar on economic loss.
Hershey recently rolled out more than 20 Halloween-themed products ahead of the holiday. Reese’s Peanut Butter Pumpkins sit in that seasonal wave. The lawsuit did not stop the product line. It produced a packaging edit and a live dispute over whether Florida buyers can force redesigns or refunds when candy art outruns the candy shape.
No damages award was granted. No finding issued that the pumpkins were defective or worthless. The operative public result is dismissal for lack of standing, a planned appeal per plaintiffs’ counsel, and a new front-and-back disclaimer on the pumpkin packs shown on Hersheyland.
Case caption, docket number, and the full dated text of Damian’s orders were not included in the reporting package. The status of any appeal filing after Kelly’s statement also has not been publicly detailed in that coverage. Those remain open procedural points for anyone tracking the docket.
Class-action machinery often starts with a splashy packaging theory and stalls when judges demand concrete economic injury. Damian’s opinion, as quoted, drew a hard line between feeling let down by missing carvings and proving the product lost value or was worthless. That line is the legal core of this story.
Hershey’s shift from “Decorating Suggestion” to “Carving not on actual product” tightens the written message without conceding liability. The company won the dismissal. Plaintiffs say they will try again on appeal. Shoppers still get peanut butter cups in pumpkin shapes. They now also get small-print text telling them the jack-o'-lantern face is not molded into the candy.
For conservatives who watch courts police creative lawsuit theories, the posture is familiar. Federal judges can and do toss claims that treat buyer regret as a federal case. Whether an appellate panel revisits standing here is the next formal question. Until then, the trial court record stands: no standing, no class, no payout, and a clearer disclaimer on the bag.
When every seasonal wrapper becomes a potential class-action exhibit, courts that insist on real injury protect both orderly commerce and the rule of law from turning subjective letdown into automatic leverage.
