The Council of Better Business Bureaus Inc. (CBBB) is a not-for-profit organization that licenses the Better Business Bureau (BBB) name and model to a network of not for profit regional bureaus. Under the model, the regional BBBs provide ratings of and accreditation to local businesses. After Wall & Associates' tax-settlement business received low ratings from several regional BBBs, Wall sued regional BBBs and the CBBB for false advertising under the Lanham Act, alleging they "falsely advertise and promote the rating system as a national, uniform, and unbiased standard when in reality it is implemented by regional, independent licensees applying their own 'subjective, biased, and personal criteria.'" The court granted defendants' motion to dismiss for lack of "statutory standing," holding that "[w]hile the asserted injury" — Wall's lost business — "may have been proximately caused by the unfavorable ratings, Wall had not adequately alleged a direct injury caused by Defendants' characterizations of their rating system as uniform, objective and unbiased." View the decision.
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