Pair say they can no longer trust the Gorton's fisherman, so they sue

A New Yorker and a Californian are suing Gorton's of Gloucester - now owned by a Japanese seafood company - alleging its "sustainable" tilapia is anything but sustainable.

Jeffrey Alan Spindel and Kevin McCarthy are hoping to become lead plaintiffs in a class-action suit over alleged deceptive product claims that their lawyers filed today in US District Court in Boston.

In their suit, in which they are alleging damages of at least $5 million on behalf of a teeming school of grilled-tilapia consumers, the two charge that rather than relying on soft-spoken bearded men in yellow slickers braving the waves o'er the briny deep to bring us the freshest, choicest tilapia fillets (tilapia in any case are native to streams and ponds in Africa), Gorton's gets at least some of its tilapia from overcrowded "industrial" fish farms in China that douse their feed with antibiotics and dangerous preservatives and which often get flooded by nearby rivers, letting disease-ridden, antibiotic-resistant farm tilapia escape and infect native fish - the ones that the tilapia don't out-compete for food.

Gorton’s claims about sustainability deceive and/or are likely to deceive consumers. Reasonable consumers have been, and continue to be, deceived into believing that the Products are made from tilapia sustainably sourced in accordance with high environmental and animal welfare standards, when in reality, and on information and belief, the Products are made using unsustainable practices that are environmentally destructive and inhumane. ...

In making the false, deceptive, and misleading representations at issue, Gorton’s also knows and intends that consumers will buy more of and/or pay more for fish products marketed as “sustainabily sourced,” furthering Gorton’s interest of increasing its sales and decreasing sales of competitors whose products are truthfully marketed.

Spindel says he happily bought Gorton's tilapia at supermarkets in Rockland County, New York for two years - until he discovered the truth about the company's "sustainable" claims:

Plaintiff Spindel was willing to pay the requested price for Gorton’s Products because he reasonably expected that the tilapia used in the Products were sustainably sourced in accordance with high environmental and animal welfare standards.

Had Plaintiff Spindel known that the Products were made from tilapia industrially farmed using unsustainable practices that are environmentally destructive and inhumane, he would not have purchased or continued to purchase the Products at the requested price.

He avers that he continues to consume tilapia, just not the version Gorton's sells.

McCarthy claims a similar story, except he bought Gorton's tilapia in a supermarket in San Francisco.

The two want Gorton's to stop what they claim is its deceptive advertising and to pay them and other members of the class enough money to make Gorton's never want to do that again, plus attorney's fees.

The case was assigned to Judge Patti Saris. Another judge in Boston federal court, Nathaniel Gorton, is related to the family that started Gorton's (he did rule in a case involving Legal Sea Foods last year).

Complete complaint (2.8M PDF).