As a husband, Christopher Rapczynski of Massachusetts is a prince, at least on the evidence of a 16-page ruling this week by U.S. District Judge Paul Oetken of Manhattan. One day in 2011, when Rapczynski went to the convenience store to buy ice cream for his wife as a thank-you for taking care of their three small children, he saw a promotional display for Skinnygirl Margaritas, the ready-to-drink cocktail created by onetime Real Housewife of New York Bethenny Frankel and now sold by Jim Beam. Rapczynski remembered that his wife had tasted the margaritas at a party and really liked them. So as a surprise for her, he forked over $18 or $19 to buy a bottle. "I love my wife," Rapczynski testified at a deposition, according to Oetken's ruling. "She has my three children and works very hard.... That bottle could have been $250, and given the heat and workload that we have at our house, I would have bought ten of them."

Unfortunately for Rapczynski and his lawyers at The Law Offices of Thomas M. Mullaney, that sweet story about buying a gift for his wife meant that he could not serve as the lead plaintiff in a New York class action alleging that Skinnygirl Margaritas were falsely advertised to be all-natural when they actually contain a very tiny amount of the chemical preservative sodium benzoate. As a threshold matter, Oetken said, Rapczynski bought the drinks in Massachusetts, so he can't bring claims for the class under New York law. And moreover, there's the problem of whether Rapczynski even cared about Skinnygirl's all-natural advertising. In a declaration after his deposition, he said that he did, that he wouldn't have bought the drink if he had known it contained the preservative. Oetken was unpersuaded. "This court has serious doubts as to the causation element of Rapczynski's claims," he wrote, noting the "apparent inconsistencies" between the deposition testimony and subsequent declaration.

If he were to name Rapczynski as class representative, the judge said, the whole case would come down to individual issues, which is antithetical to the purpose of classwide litigation. "These discrepancies and causation issues, which are unique to Rapczynski, his wife's tastes and his family situation," Oetken wrote, meant that the Massachusetts man failed the typicality test for a name plaintiff. The judge refused to certify the class, and because Rapczynski is the only name plaintiff, the ruling should mean the end of the case. (I left a message for Rapczynski counsel Mullaney but didn't hear back.)

This isn't the only recent ruling to conclude that name plaintiffs in a consumer class action claiming food was deceptively advertised as healthy didn't actually have health foremost in mind when they bought the product. In September, U.S. District Judge Peter Sheridan granted summary judgment to General Mills, in a purported class action claiming that the company falsely advertised the health benefits of Cheerios. The judge found that the name plaintiffs, some of whom still ate Cheerios, either hadn't suffered damages or presented unique circumstances. (There are more examples in an overview that Michael Hoenig of Herzfeld & Rubin wrote for The New York Law Journal.)

Some food class actions have resulted in certified classes and settlements, but Donald Strauber of Chadbourne & Parke, who represents the Skinnygirl Margarita defendants, told me that Judge Oetken's ruling shows why plaintiffs in these cases shouldn't be grouped in a class. "Every person has a different reason for buying the product," Strauber said. "These are all individual decisions by thousands of people around the country." The idea of certifying a class of people who bought Skinnygirl Margaritas, he said, "is, frankly, just silly."

But the Skinnygirl defendants aren't off the hook yet. A total of nine class actions were filed against Skinnygirl's makers and marketers in 2011, after the cocktail was revealed to contain trace amounts of the preservative. Plaintiffs have dropped three with no payment from the defendants, Strauber said. (I called lawyers at Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd and Fears Nachawati, which filed two of the dropped cases, but didn't hear back.) Another case has been stayed since it was filed. The other cases, however, are proceeding in different federal courts, after the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation declined in December 2011 to consolidate the class actions. In the most advanced case, in federal district court in San Diego, a summary judgment motion by the defense is pending.

(Reporting by Alison Frankel)

Follow us on Twitter: @AlisonFrankel, @ReutersLegal  | Like us on Facebook