The image in the article does not list carrageenan as an ingredient at all. Costco asserts the suit is flawed because carrageenan is not a preservative (so it can claim no preservatives), but it is listed as a seasoning ingredient.
If that is the case, there isn't much of a case because there is notice that the ingredient is present (despite the claim of no preservatives). If it is actually not listed at all, there is valid reason for some legal action.
As a concrete example of why accurate labels are critical, my daughter has a poultry allergy - it kicks her ulcerative colitis out of remission, increasing her risk of cancer each time it happens. She learned from a very young age (7-ish) to ask about any meat which not labeled, or obviously non poultry. A local restaurant labeled unidentifiable ground meat as taco beef. Had it said taco meat, my then 10-ish year old daughter would have asked to see the label - but since she knew beef meant cow, she didn't ask. Sure enough, she was out of remission in 3 days and we had no idea why, until we went back to the restaurant a couple of weeks later and I remembered what she ate the last time we had been there. We had them check the ingredients - and sure enough - the meat was turkey - not beef. We didn't sue, but we did get the corporation involved, twice, when they reverted to the old labels after they had been corrected.
Had my daughter's reaction been anaphylaxis, rather than a mild bout of hives and kicking her out of remission, that failure to label correctly might have killed her.
Carageen carries identical risks for my daughter - it is a gut inflammatory agent, which many people with IBD (including my daughter) avoid. She reads labels very closely to avoid things likely to kick her out of remission. She wouldn't have been eating chicken, so this mislabeling would not have impacted her - but others with IBD would have been impacted.
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