Pizza%20Hut,%20Inc.%20v.%20Papa%20John

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Pizza Hut, Inc. v.Papa Johns International

• U.S. Court of Appeals
• 5th Circuit
• 2000

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Facts
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• Pizza Hut
• False claim of superior ingredients
• Undertook campaign to improve its pizza
• using more and better quality ingredients

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• Papa Johns
• further emphasized message of superiority by
  focusing on specific ingredients
• Claimed fresh pack method of producing tomato
  paste was superior to most big chains and most
  pizza delivery chains
• Adopted new method of manufacturing dough (using
  ozonated filtered water) specifically for purpose
  of drawing negative comparisons to Pizza Hut

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• Papa Johns
• continued to use Better Ingredients, Better
  Pizza in connection with more specific claims
  about sauce and dough

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• Pizza Hut
• sued to enjoin Papa Johns from
• deceptive claims regarding sauce and crust
• using slogan

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District Court

• Sauce and dough superiority claims false
• ambiguous and self-laudatory, consistent with
  the legal definition of non-actionable puffing
• By combining it with other, false claims, slogan
  became tainted
• Made claim of superiority quantifiable
• Enjoined its use

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Court of Appeals

• Best Pizza Under One Roof (Pizza Hut)
• Nobody Delivers Better (Dominos)
• Best Pizza on the Block (Donatos)
• Best Pizza Ever (Pizza Inn)

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• The Best Beer in America
• The most advanced home gaming system in the
  universe

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Held

• Ads making misleading claims about superiority of
  dough and sauce tainted general claim of
  superiority
• 31 of 278 ads
• Rejected claim that misleading specific claims
  became encoded in consumers mind
• Reversed