We havewarned readers of MassTortDefense of the alarming trend of plaintiff lawyers seeking to attack every aspect of a product's packaging and labeling as somehow a case of consumer fraud -- often ignoring common sense in the process.

The latest example comes from a case rightly rejected by the Second Circuit last week. See Verzani v. Costco Wholesale Corp., No. 10-04868, 2011 WL 4359936 (2d Cir., Sept. 20, 2011).

Plaintiffs brought a putative class action against Costco Wholesale Corp. over the size of its "shrimp trays." (We love em, especially for football parties.) Plaintiffs claimed that the wholesaler misled customers by labeling its shrimp trays as 16 ounce trays when the shrimp part of the tray itself only weighed about 13 1/2 ounces. The other few ounces were allegedly made up of the cocktail sauce and lemon wedges. (We pause and ask, how can you eat shrimp without those two accompaniments?)