Lumber Liquidators Lawsuits Filed Following 60 Minutes Report

It’s official – Lumber Liquidators has been sued. Since the 60 Minutes report aired two weeks ago, nearly a dozen class action lawsuits have been filed against Lumber Liquidators in federal courts across the country – and things are just getting started.

The suits were filed in the following states, though it should be noted that some of these cases seek to represent a nationwide class of people who purchased the Chinese-made laminate flooring.

• California (Flanagan v. Lumber Liquidators, Inc. et al, U.S. District Court for the Central District of California; Hurd et al v. Lumber Liquidators, Inc., U.S. District Court for the Central District of California)
• Pennsylvania (Burns v. Lumber Liquidators, Inc. et al, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania)
• Alabama (Heilman et al v. Lumber Liquidators, Inc. et al, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama)
• South Carolina (Scott et al v. Lumber Liquidators, Inc. et al, U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina)
• New York (Moreland v. Lumber Liquidators, Inc., U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York)
• Indiana (Johnson et al v. Lumber Liquidators, Inc., U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana)
• Oklahoma (Martin et al v. Lumber Liquidators, Inc. et al, U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma)
• New Jersey (Universita v. Lumber Liquidators, Inc., U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey)
• Georgia (Lipski et al v. Lumber Liquidators, Inc. et al, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia)
• Florida (Badias v. Lumber Liquidators, Inc. et al, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida)

The suits bring a laundry list of claims. While these vary between cases, they include breach of warranty, deceptive marketing and false advertising. The suits allege that Lumber Liquidators misled consumers by claiming its Chinese-made flooring meets California Air Resource Board standards for formaldehyde emissions.

We expect that more cases will be filed in the upcoming days and weeks.

Where Do We Go From Here?

We recognize that many people who have this flooring in their homes aren’t very familiar with how class action lawsuits work. Some things to expect:

If you contact a law firm, you may not hear from them. The law firms handling these cases may only need one person or a handful of people to file a proposed class action. This person or group of people is known as the “lead plaintiff(s)” and is designated to act on behalf of the “class.” The “class” is the group of people the lawsuit seeks to represent.

For instance, in the case filed in South Carolina against Lumber Liquidators, lead plaintiffs Jerry Green and Twala Scott are seeking to represent “all persons and entities who purchased and installed wood flooring from Lumbar Liquidators Holdings, either directly or through an agent, that was sourced, processed, or manufactured in China.”

Therefore, if the firm you reached out to already spoke with and retained a few Lumber Liquidators customers who they believe would be good lead plaintiffs, the attorneys may not need to reach out to you specifically. This does not mean, however, that the litigation is not moving forward. You can learn more about the class action process here.

In many class action lawsuits, you don’t need to do anything to “join” the case. You can learn more about what it really means to “join” a class action.

These lawsuits are only proposed class actions. A judge still has to give them the OK to move ahead as class action lawsuits and certify what group of people will be represented by the lawsuits.

You may want to speak with an attorney about your individual situation. At this point, everything’s still up in the air. We can’t give you legal advice and have no way of knowing how these lawsuits will proceed – they are still very much in their infancy. Therefore, you may want to talk to an attorney about your flooring. Just note that there are strict time limits for filing lawsuits, so be sure to act quickly.