Kimkins Diet gets class-action status
We’ve been following the Kimkins Diet for a couple of years now, from the time it was promoted in Woman’s World magazine, which subsequently apologized for promoting the diet, through the lawsuit brought by former adherents to the diet who say it was a starvation plan and that the founder of the diet, Heidi Diaz, falsely claimed to have lost weight on the plan and actually used pictures from a Russian mail order bride website as her after photos.
Class-action status approved
We recently got word from the anti-Kimkins site Say No to Kimkins that the lawsuit against Diaz has been made into a class action in Riverside County Superior Court in California.
The class includes anyone who signed up for an account on the Kimkins website between January 1, 2006, and October 15, 2007. The plaintiffs who originally started the suit are six people who had memberships in the site, and they are suing Diaz as well as the Kimkins.com business entity.
They contend that they were induced into becoming members of the site through false and misleading information and are suing under California code that calls for relief for people who’ve been subject to unfair, unlawful or fraudulent business practices.
In particular, according to the announcement at Say No to Kimkins, the plaintiffs allege:
- that Diaz and Kimkins concocted a false persona, “Kim Drake” or “Kimmer” to sell memberships to Kimkins.com
- that Diaz and Kimkins misled potential members into believing that “Kim Drake” was real by using photos of real women and then falsely claiming that the photos depicted “Drake”
- that Diaz and Kimkins posted lies about “Drake’s” purported weight loss
- that Diaz and Kimkins provided false or misleading information to Woman’s World magazine
- that Diaz and Kimkins fabricated 41 “success stories” and published on Kimkins.com
- that Diaz and Kimkins made up celebrity endorsements
- that Diaz and Kimkins misused labels and metatags to steer Internet traffic to Kimkins.com, in violation of the law
- that Diaz and Kimkins misled potential members into believing that they were buying lifetime memberships, when in fact Diaz and Kimkins.com terminated memberships at their whim
- that Diaz and Kimkins intended to mislead potential members and assumed that potential members would rely on her misrepresentations
Diaz has denied all wrongdoing.
About the class
Anyone who became a member of the website during the time in question is automatically a party to the class action, but people can opt out of the lawsuit if desired by contacting the attorneys who represent the class.
While the announcement makes it sound like only those people who were personally injured by the website and diet plan can opt out of the lawsuit, of course anyone in the class should be able to. We find it a little fishy, too, that it’s suggesting you opt out by contacting the attorneys, since that could be a privacy violation.
Also, the report suggests checking into the court documents online; they are no longer available there. So if you’re a part of this class and want more information, proceed with caution.
(By Sarah E. White for CalorieLab Calorie Counter News)
Subscribe to our RSS feed | Weekly e-mail updates | Follow us on Twitter
Related posts from the CalorieLab Calorie Counter News archives:
- Woman’s World apologizes for promoting Kimkins Diet
- The Kimmer Komic: Heidi Diaz and the Kimkins Diet meet the press
- The rise and fall of the Kimkins Diet
- Nibbles: Kids with high blood pressure, diet frauds, and ice cream as “controlled indulgence”
- Foods that boost metabolism, and other diet tips from Woman’s World
