U.S. District Judge LaShann DeArcy Hall dismissed a class action accusing Diageo of falsely labeling Casamigos and Don Julio tequilas "100% agave," a ruling reported October 1, 2026, finding the plaintiffs failed to show harm.
The case, filed in the Eastern District of New York, was one of three parallel suits brought against Diageo North America in 2025 over the two brands, which together rank among the best selling tequilas in the United States.
What the lawsuit alleged
The original complaint was filed on May 5, 2025 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, case number 1:25-cv-02482, by New Jersey resident Avi Pusateri, New York bartender Chaim Mishulovin and the Brooklyn restaurant Sushi Tokyo Inc. The suit, brought by the Seattle firm Hagens Berman, claimed consumers and businesses paid premium prices for Casamigos and Don Julio tequilas believing them to be made entirely from Blue Weber agave, when testing had allegedly found otherwise. A related California filing framed the claims as a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations case and cited specific figures, alleging that Casamigos Blanco and Don Julio Añejo tested at around 33 percent agave derived ethanol, with Casamigos Reposado and Don Julio Blanco at 42 percent. A parallel Florida class action, filed by Nabil Haschemie, made similar claims. Collectively the suits sought more than five million dollars in damages and an order barring Diageo from continuing to market the tequilas as 100 percent agave.
How Diageo responded in court filings
Diageo moved to dismiss the New York case on November 1, 2025, days after filing a similar motion in the Florida action on October 28, 2025. The company's filings argued that the plaintiffs' claims rested on a single, unvalidated nuclear magnetic resonance test performed on one sample each of Casamigos and Don Julio, neither of which the plaintiffs themselves had purchased, and that the New York complaint additionally relied on partial results from five unidentified samples despite plaintiffs claiming to have bought more than 73 bottles. Diageo's lawyers called the litigation manufactured and, in one filing, compared the plaintiffs' testing theory to someone concluding the earth is flat from a single reading of a neighbor's yard. Throughout the filings, the company maintained that Casamigos and Don Julio tequilas labeled 100% agave are made from 100% Blue Weber agave and noted that each export batch must receive a certificate of authenticity from Mexico's Consejo Regulador del Tequila, the body that enforces the country's NOM-006 standard for tequila.
What the judge found and what comes next
In dismissing the case, Judge DeArcy Hall found that evidence drawn from five samples did not support a reasonable inference of what the court described as ubiquitous, systemic mislabeling across the brands. The judge had previously paused several related federal suits while the motion was pending. Diageo said it was gratified that the court rejected the adulteration allegations and said it continues to stand by the quality and integrity of its tequilas. Plaintiffs' attorney Steve Berman of Hagens Berman said the ruling gets the record wrong and that the plaintiffs may ask the court to reconsider, maintaining that independent laboratory testing had found the tequilas were not made entirely from agave. Hagens Berman has since filed a separate suit against Costco over its Kirkland Signature tequila on similar grounds, indicating the broader theory behind the Diageo litigation is still being tested elsewhere.
What this means
The dismissal addresses a pleading standard, not a laboratory finding; no court has examined Diageo's production records or independently tested its tequilas. Several of the bottles named in the suits appear in Tequila Watch's database, including Don Julio Blanco at 62 of 95, Don Julio Reposado at 59, Don Julio 1942 at 61, Casamigos Blanco at 55, Casamigos Reposado at 70 and Casamigos Añejo at 56. Those figures reflect the site's published four pillar scoring criteria and are not the product of any assay, and nothing in this ruling changes what has or has not been documented about either brand's composition.