Starbucks: the coffee brand America loves to sue.
Not but a month removed from some overly-litigious yahoo suing Starbucks over allegedly underfilling their lattes, we’ve got another overly litigious yahoo suing Starbucks, this time for overfilling drinks with ice. MSNBC reports that Illinois woman and as-yet-unconfirmed life of any party she attends Stacy Pincus is asking for $5 million in her class action suit, claiming that Starbucks underfills iced beverages by almost half thanks to all that ice.
And being litigious isn’t any fun if you can’t also be semantic. The lawsuit is based on a strict definition of the word “beverage”, which according to the suit is “defined as ‘a drinkable liquid.’ Ice is not a ‘beverage’ by definition.” Fun. But since we’re getting semantic, I’d like to note that, assuming you’re not drinking your iced latte on the frozen tundra, ice is a drinkable liquid, albeit one that requires patience. It’s like time-release medicine, and we aren’t suing over time-release medicine not being medicine immediately, are we?
Someone probably is now. Sorry, Big Pharma. That one’s on me.
The suit alleges that Starbucks is knowingly tricking customers into paying more for less using “intentionally misleading advertising practices.” Because of ice. Being put in an iced latte. You know, ice. The thing that magically transforms a latte into an iced latte. The thing that keeps a mix of hot espresso and cold milk from being a light-brownish lukewarm slurry. Ice.
If you are unhappy with the amount of ice in your drink, here are a few options to try instead of making a mockery of the American legal system:
- Ask them to remake it, as Starbucks has to constantly remind folks they will do thanks to these crazytown lawsuits
- Ask for less ice in the first place
- Go to a different coffee shop and see if their ice to latte ratio is more suitable to your needs
- Make iced lattes at home and never leave your house again because you don’t belong in polite society
- Don’t, you know, order a drink with “ice” in the title. Maybe try some cold brew instead.
Zac Cadwalader is the news editor at Sprudge Media Network.
