A six-year fight over a couple of rebates worth $16 has ended in a much costlier judgment against an Illinois shopper, who has presumably learned to fill out future rebate forms very, very carefully.
Shortly after his two rebate submissions for the purchase of several bottles of wine were denied way back in 2019, Brent Holmes of Mattoon, Illinois sued rebate processor Inmar Intelligence, accusing it of deceptively promoting rebates that it failed to honor.
Now, the two sides have reached a settlement agreement to end the dispute – and the judge has ordered the plaintiff to pay the defendant a yet-to-be-determined amount of attorneys’ fees and costs, on top of the nearly $25,000 he had already been ordered to pay.
The wine bottles Holmes purchased had hangtags with mail-in rebate forms, offering $7 for purchasing three bottles of St. James wine, and $9 for purchasing six bottles of Yellow Tail wine. Holmes said he filled out the forms, mailed them in, but never got his rebates. So he sued, calling the offers “unlawful” and “fraudulent.”
Inmar waved off the first claim, saying it “does not even provide rebate services to St. James Winery.” And it defended its rejection of the other rebate submission, saying “Holmes entered an incorrect date of birth on his Yellow Tail wine rebate form, indicating he was under the age of 21.”
Make that way under the age of 21. As shown in the image above, the form Holmes submitted showed a birth date of “9-12-15,” which would have made him a very young and very ineligible four years old at the time of his wine purchase. Holmes acknowledged the date was incorrect, but tried arguing that the birth date could have referred to a very old and therefore eligible 104-year-old.
Either way, he claimed, “the written terms of the rebate offer do not state that the consumer must provide a date of birth.” Inmar disagreed, saying “Holmes did not comply with all of the terms of the rebate offer,” and that “there is nothing remotely deceptive about Inmar’s conduct or the rebate terms.”
And the fight was on, for six long years – until the judge finally had enough.
The judge last week approved the parties’ move to dismiss the case, after he issued a summary judgment in favor of Inmar, precluding the case from ever making it to trial.
Inmar rejected the rebate request since it did not have “valid age information,” the judge noted, and it invited Holmes to resubmit the form. Instead, the judge said Holmes initiated several emails and phone calls to Inmar, disputing that he needed to provide a date of birth at all – a requirement that was spelled out on the back of the hangtag, which Holmes claimed he never saw.
“No reasonable consumer would believe that the front of the tag included all information needed to obtain the rebate,” the judge stated. “Every reasonable consumer would understand that there must be more information available somewhere, and the very next reasonable step would be to turn over the tag in search of the missing information. The back of the tag did in fact contain that information.”
In issuing his judgment, the judge declared that Holmes failed to show “there was a valid and enforceable contract between him and Defendant — a required element of his breach
of contract claim,” and he failed to “show that Defendant engaged in any deceptive act or practice.” Holmes “had multiple chances to ‘put up or shut up’ and show what evidence he had in support of his claims,” but instead, he “wasted the court’s time and resources,” making “numerous — and mostly irrelevant — arguments.”
The judge noted that Holmes claimed he was “entitled to nearly $2 billion plus attorney’s fees.” Instead, the plaintiff was ordered to pay the defendant’s attorney’s fees – twice. In an earlier ruling, the judge granted Inmar $24,174.19 in legal fees. In the latest ruling, he ordered the payment of even more legal fees to cover Inmar’s costs as the case dragged on.
So Holmes will not be getting his $2 billion. Nor will he be getting his $16. Instead, his side has been forced to fork over at least five figures’ worth of fees to the company they sued.
And the consumers he sought to represent in a class-action case won’t be getting anything at all, except a reminder to read all the terms of any rebate they seek – and make sure they double check their work before mailing it in.
