Lumber Liquidators Facing Laminate Flooring Lawsuits

A number of laminate flooring class action lawsuits have sprung up against flooring giant Lumber Liquidators. Assertions have been made that Lumber Liquidators has sold Chinese-made flooring that contains illegal levels of a cancer-causing substance.

Formaldehyde is a remarkably common organic compound. It is used in embalming fluid and some industrial applications. Oddly, all living things produce very small amounts of formaldehyde and break them down. But in larger concentrations, formaldehyde is very toxic, and causes DNA damage that can lead to cancer. In industry, formaldehyde is widely used—with precautions. In industrial applications, formaldehyde is used as a precursor to other chemicals, a solvent, or as an antiseptic, as it can kill various microorganisms.

Lumber Liquidators is currently facing a total of 11 separate laminate flooring class action lawsuits over the allegations of illegal-level formaldehyde contamination. Trace amounts of formaldehyde are permissible in wood products like flooring, but there are strict laws in the United States to make sure that consumer goods do not have more than very small amounts of formaldehyde in them. Allegedly, some Chinese-made flooring sold by Lumber Liquidators had concentrations of formaldehyde more than 1,300 percent higher than permissible under U.S. and California laws.

In recent years, wood products like flooring and other construction materials from China have been the focus of lawsuits. China, though a growing industrial powerhouse, has much laxer environmental and industrial safety laws, allowing for a more liberal use of formaldehyde. Infamously, a number of trailers used by the Federal Emergency Management Agency during the Gulf Coast hurricanes tested positive for dangerous levels of formaldehyde. The elevated levels of formaldehyde were traced to laminate flooring that was made in China.

Allegedly, Lumber Liquidators “prominently advertised” that the flooring in question met California’s strict formaldehyde regulations, referencing specific California’s stricter-than national formaldehyde regulations. However, one Lumber Liquidators lawsuit has alleged that under laboratory testing, it was revealed that every sample tested had levels of formaldehyde far beyond those allowed under California law according to tests performed at a certified laboratory. In fact, the television newsmagazine “60 Minutes” has aired a segment regarding elevated levels of formaldehyde in Lumber Liquidator laminate flooring based on these laboratory tests, some of which found levels of formaldehyde 13 times higher than permissible by U.S. law.

The Lumber Liquidators class action lawsuits seek punitive and statutory damages, and compensation for violations of the law. Additionally, some Lumber Liquidator lawsuits seek to recoup the cost of replacing the floors with formaldehyde-compliant wood flooring. Lumber Liquidators lawsuits have been filed across a number of states.

UPDATE: Several Lumber Liquidators class action lawsuits were consolidated into a multidistrict litigation (MDL), or mass tort, and transferred to a Virginia federal court by the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML), alleging that the flooring company sold wood floors containing toxic levels of formaldehyde.

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