Hobby Lobby “vigorously denies that it engaged in any misrepresentations or wrongful conduct in its 40% off coupon program,” the retailer said in a court filing, but it agreed to settle the case to avoid the time and expense of further litigation. The plaintiffs argued that “always” selling a product for 30% off made that the de facto regular price, to which the 40% off coupon should have been applied. Hobby Lobby argued that was a sale price, so the 40% coupon only applied to the item’s list price. Many of Hobby Lobby’s items are marked as being “always 30% off” list price. But the plaintiffs discovered that there’s a murky middle ground. The retailer’s 40% coupon offers a discount on a “regular-priced” item, which means you can’t use it on an item that’s on sale. They argued that Hobby Lobby’s couponing and pricing policies were misleading and deceptive, and deprived them of the full discount they expected. Two shoppers, one in Alabama and one in Florida, filed separate lawsuits against Hobby Lobby that were later combined into a single class-action case. Now, a proposed settlement agreement filed with the court confirms the legal challenge is indeed what led Hobby Lobby to discontinue the coupons – and what may eventually lead the retailer to bring them back. While the story was widely reported, Coupons in the News was the only publication to draw a potential connection between that move, and a long-running legal challenge to the way Hobby Lobby accepts and applies those coupons. The craft store chain made headlines late last month when it announced it would be discontinuing its weekly “40% off one item at regular price” coupons at the end of February. But weeks after unceremoniously killing off its popular 40% off coupons, Hobby Lobby may already be preparing to bring them back.
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