Irvine man sues Safeway supermarket chain over ‘underweight’ tuna cans

An Irvine man is suing Safeway Inc., claiming the Northern California-based supermarket chain underfills certain cans of tuna sold in its stores.

The national company’s stores include Vons and Pavilions in Southern California. Safeway merged with Albertsons in January 2015.

In court documents filed this month, lawyers for Heney Shihad say he has regularly purchased 5-ounce cans of Safeway’s house-brand tuna since 2013.

At some point, the lawsuit says, Shihad discovered those cans were “substantially underweight.”

The lawsuit claims that independent lab testing confirmed that Safeway routinely sold cans that contained less than the labeled 5 ounces.

“The tests reveal that Safeway regularly underfills 5-ounce cans of Safeway-brand solid white albacore tuna in water and regularly underfills 5-ounce cans of Open Nature-brand chunk light tuna in water, yet continues to falsely label and market them as legally compliant 5-ounce cans,” according to the complaint filed Jan. 8 in U.S. District Court in Northern California.

Shihad’s lawyers contend the alleged mislabeling also violates California law and amounts to fraud and negligence.

A representative of Safeway, based in Pleasanton, did not immediately return a message seeking comment.

Reuben Nathan, a Newport Beach attorney representing Shihad, also did not immediately respond to a call.

Shihad’s lawsuit seeks class-action status, claiming more than 1 million people across the state and country bought the fraudulent-labeled tuna.

It estimates they’re owed more than $5 million in damages.