CRA vice president Dr. Debra Aron advised counsel for a consumer-packaged goods company, Defendant in a purported class action brought by consumers alleging that the company was misleading about the safety and benefits of the product at issue. Dr. Aron testified at deposition on damages and class certification in litigation in federal court.
The Plaintiffs’ experts propounded a damages theory that the product would have carried a lower market price had the alleged misrepresentation not occurred. They proposed to estimate the but-for price using a conjoint survey coupled with a Nash-Bertrand model of supply and competition. Dr. Aron testified as to whether the economic literature supported the ability of the Plaintiffs’ experts’ proposed methodology to reliably estimate a but-for price for the purposes of estimating damages in the instant litigation. She found that the economic literature showed that the proposed supply side model was unreliable for the proposed purpose and could not produce a valid damages estimate in the case.
Dr. Aron also analyzed the labelling of the product over time and the product types, she found that variations in the labelling would have allowed the Plaintiffs to directly estimate price effects of the purported misleading label content. She also testified that the data showed no measurable effect of the relevant differences in label content.
Dr. Aron was supported by CRA team Dr. Jarrod Welch, Dr. Patricia Anghel, and Dr. Shuang Wang.
