A Fairfax County man has filed a lawsuit against Toano-based Lumber Liquidators, seeking compensation for himself and anyone else affected by what he claims are excessive formaldehyde levels in the company’s Chinese laminate flooring.
The company’s stock value has fallen from about $68 per share to about $29 per share following a bruising report on the CBS news program 60 Minutes on March 1. CBS News bought 31 boxes of Chinese laminate flooring at the company’s stores across the country and then sent them for testing, which revealed all but one of the boxes failed to meet acceptable levels of formaldehyde as specified by California regulations set to be adopted nationwide later this year.
Court documents filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia as part of the new lawsuit specifically mention the 60 Minutes report as the crux of the suit. The suit asks for a jury to consider the evidence against Lumber Liquidators.
The documents point to testing featured in the report by two California-based environmental groups along with the testing of the laminate purchased by CBS News as evidence that the company has caused the plaintiff, William Marmonti, and anyone else similarly situated to “suffer direct financial harm.”
Marmonti bought 12mm Dream Home Kensington Manor Warm Springs Chestnut Laminate Flooring from Lumber Liquidators and installed it in his Fairfax County home in January, according to the suit. He seeks for himself and anyone else in his position compensation for the installation of the laminate, the cost of the laminate, court costs, attorneys’ fees, loss in value of buildings where the laminate was installed, all profits and other money the company earned from their “deceptive, misleading and unlawful conduct” and additional payouts to punish the company.
In the wake of the 60 Minutes report, Lumber Liquidators posted a lengthy rebuttal of the tests conducted in the show. It has also started offering free in-home air test kits for qualifying customers who have installed its flooring. To find out if flooring qualifies, customers can visit the company’s website.
In a statement issued March 2, the company said its products are “completely safe to use as intended” and the method of testing used by 60 Minutes was “improper.”
“In our attempt to be fair and transparent, we provided significant testing results to 60 Minutes, including the results of the random testing performed on products from each of our laminate suppliers,” the statement says. “We also went to great lengths to document issues between the validated test method and that used by 60 Minutes. Our Chairman addressed the differences and our position on the test methodology but 60 Minutes chose not to include it.”
The latest suit does not rely exclusively on the 60 Minutes report. It also uses as evidence a June 2013 report on the investment website Seeking Alpha in which a writer alleged that testing of the company’s Chinese laminate flooring revealed elevated formaldehyde levels. That report has been referenced in at least three other lawsuits, two of which are no longer active.
A few months after the Seeking Alpha report, federal agents searched the company’s headquarters and a Henrico County storefront while looking for evidence that the company sourced wood from the habitat of an endangered tiger, a move that would violate federal law.
Less than three months after the search, a group of the company’s shareholders filed a lawsuit alleging they lost money because of damage to the company’s stock value due to the allegations in the Seeking Alpha article and the allegations about wood sourced from the endangered tiger’s habitat. That suit is still active, and a motion is pending in federal court to combine it with a suit filed on behalf of pension funds for police officers and firefighters in the city of Hallandale Beach, Fla.
Another lawsuit has been filed in California by the two environmental groups featured in the 60 Minutes report. Two other suits were filed shortly after the Kiken suit, both of which sought to class action status for customers who purchased Chinese laminate products from the company. Those suits were each dismissed.
Related Coverage:
- Lumber Liquidators Stock Tumbles After Scathing ’60 Minutes’ Report
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- Greenpeace Stages Protest, Blocks Parking Lot at Lumber Liquidators (w/ Video)
- Greenpeace: Lumber Liquidators Could Be Buying Illegal Wood from Brazil
- Customer Lawsuit Against Lumber Liquidators Dismissed
- One of Three Lawsuits Against Lumber Liquidators Dropped
- Lumber Liquidators Served with Third Class-Action Lawsuit
- Toano’s Lumber Liquidators Announces Expansion Plans
- Customers File Class-Action Lawsuit Against Lumber Liquidators
- Class Action Lawsuit Against Lumber Liquidators Seeks Damages for Shareholders
- Expert: Illegal Loggers Target Siberian Tiger Habitat for Proximity to Manufacturers
- Federal Agents Search Lumber Liquidators Headquarters in Toano
