{"topic_id":"keto_natural_v_hills_lanham_act_lawsuit_2024_2025","category":"dcm","context":"---\ntopic_id: keto_natural_v_hills_lanham_act_lawsuit_2024_2025\ncategory: dcm\ntitle: \"KetoNatural v. Hill's Pet Nutrition — Lanham Act False Advertising Lawsuit Over Grain-Free DCM Claims (February 2024 Filing, Tenth Circuit Affirmed Dismissal November 2025)\"\nlang: en\nsource: \"Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals opinion (courthousenews.com PDF mirror, downloaded 2026-07-21) + North Point Pets narrative (industry analysis, 2026-04)\"\ndate_parsed: 2026-07-21\ntokens_estimated: 1050\nverification:\n  method: substring_match_with_reference\n  claims: 9\n  passed: 9\n  date: 2026-07-21\n  note: \"Tenth Circuit appellate opinion text-verified for legal claims; industry analysis cross-confirms timelines\"\n---\n\n# KetoNatural v. Hill's Pet Nutrition — Lanham Act False Advertising Lawsuit Over Grain-Free DCM Claims\n\n**KetoNatural Pet Foods**, a manufacturer and seller of grain-free pet food, treats and supplement products, filed a **$2.6 billion Lanham Act false advertising lawsuit** against **Hill's Pet Nutrition** (a Colgate-Palmolive subsidiary), the **Morris Animal Foundation**, the **Mark Morris Institute**, and five veterinary researchers — **Drs. Lisa Freeman, Joshua Stern, Darcy Adin, Ryan Fries, and John Rush** — in **February 2024**, alleging that Hill's and the associated researchers \"weaponized\" the FDA's DCM reporting system to suppress the grain-free pet food market segment.\n\n## Procedural History\n\n- **February 2024**: KetoNatural filed the lawsuit in the United States District Court for the District of Kansas (case 2:24-cv-02144), on behalf of itself and a putative class of pet food manufacturers and retailers.\n- **June-July 2024**: KetoNatural voluntarily dismissed all defendants **other than Hill's**, but maintained the **civil conspiracy** claim under Kansas state law.\n- **June 2024**: Hill's moved to dismiss the complaint under Rule 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim.\n- **District Court**: Dismissed the complaint with prejudice, finding that KetoNatural failed to plausibly allege actionable Lanham Act false advertising.\n- **November 2025**: The **United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit** affirmed the dismissal in its published opinion (case 24-3173 or related).\n\n## The Two Claims Asserted\n\n1. **False advertising under the Lanham Act** (15 U.S.C. § 1125(a)(1)(B)) — alleging that Hill's marketing statements falsely tied grain-free diets to DCM.\n2. **Civil conspiracy under Kansas state law** — alleging coordinated action between Hill's and the five veterinarian defendants / two foundation defendants.\n\n## Tenth Circuit Holding\n\nThe appellate panel held that:\n\n1. **None of the challenged Hill's statements** were literally false on their face or actionable as Lanham Act establishment claims. Specifically, statements characterizing the **FDA case reports** (\"Research has now shown that these diets ... are commonly grain-free commercial dry diets that contain pulses and, to a lesser extent, potatoes or sweet potatoes\") and \"Many have linked diet-associated DCM with grain-free diets\" were **characterisations of the FDA investigation record**, not actionable establishment claims.\n\n2. The **third-party Veterinarian defendants' statements** were held to be **non-actionable statements about a scientific issue**, not commercial advertising or promotion by Hill's. As the court put it, these are \"first-party statements by the scientists themselves, made in their own names, on scientific topics\".\n\n3. **Hill's statements about its own \"prescription-only\" market position** (\"#1 Vet-Recommended Brand\") were commercial speech but did not constitute false advertising — they were not literally false.\n\n4. The **civil conspiracy** claim failed because the underlying Lanham Act claim failed and the alleged conspiracy was based on the same non-actionable conduct.\n\n## Significance\n\nThe case crystallises the post-2022 **causality dispute** about grain-free diets and canine DCM:\n\n- **Hill's side** (and the peer-reviewed research, see companion topic `FDA_DCM_post_closure_science_2023_2025`): the diet-DCM link (particularly legumes/pulses) is supported by echo and ECG studies.\n- **KetoNatural side**: the FDA's 2022 closure statement (\"insufficient data for causal relationship\") and the absence of a definitive mechanistic study mean that commercial statements about the link are not literally true, are commercially damaging, and may constitute false advertising.\n\nThe Tenth Circuit's affirmance of dismissal is a **procedural** win for Hill's (and the researchers) — it does not adjudicate the underlying scientific question. The diet-DCM link remains an active area of peer-reviewed research (the November 2025 Veterinary Sciences narrative review continues to support the link) and ongoing industry/policy debate.\n\n## Companion Lawsuit — Blue Buffalo (April 2026)\n\nA separate lawsuit filed in April 2026 against **Blue Buffalo** alleges the company's grain-free dog food contributed to a pet's DCM. The case continues a wave of litigation targeting pet food makers over formulation choices and marketing claims tied to DCM concerns — including the **Hill's and veterinarian defendants** allegedly \"manipulating\" the FDA into examining grain-free diets' risk.\n\n## Source\n\n`pdf-raw/dcm-lawsuits/keto-natural-hills-scientific-answer-1.pdf` (Tenth Circuit published opinion, downloaded from `courthousenews.com`, 2026-07-21). Industry-side timeline and analysis cross-referenced with North Point Pets narrative on Grain-Free Dog Food and Heart Disease (April 2026).\n\nFor the underlying FDA 2018-2022 investigation, see companion topics `FDA_DCM_investigation_timeline_2014_2024` and `FDA_DCM_investigation_closure_2022_dec`. For the post-closure peer-reviewed science, see companion topic `FDA_DCM_post_closure_science_2023_2025`.","sources":[],"tokens_estimated":1050,"generated_at":null,"tip":"Use /api/v1/topics to discover more topics. /api/v1/nutrient for precise single-point queries. /api/v1/cross_compare for 2-3 standard comparisons."}