Kenmore refrigerator class action over compressor defect dismissed

(Oct. 19, 2020)

The makers of Kenmore refrigerators face a class action lawsuit from plaintiffs who claim their product is knowingly sold with a defect that leads to breakdowns just years after buying it. 

LG installs a specific type of compressor into their Kenmore refrigerators that is made from parts that don’t last, the class action lawsuit alleges, and are eventually fixed with the same parts, which doesn’t solve the initial problem. 

Plaintiffs Shannon Marriot and Michael Wasle both bought Kenmore Elite branded refrigerators in 2016. Within three years, they stopped working, according to the filing.

They say LG’s Kenmore refrigerators demonstrate a pattern and history of breakdowns, adding further that “LG’s compressors have caused consumers problems for many years.” 

The filing elaborates how defective compressors cause the Kenmore refrigerators to break down. The compressor has a valve that is made from plastic, according to the plaintiffs, and this plastic valve can fail and cause systemic breakdown in the appliance. 

They further explain the Kenmore refrigerators also house an evaporator that holds tubing that develops air leaks from pinholes. These leaks “generate excess pressure that stresses the compressor” which in turn contaminates the lubricant in the compressor and “infects the entire sealed system.” 

The issues that the plaintiffs had with the compressor persisted, however, even after technicians were dispatched to repair their Kenmore refrigerators, because the problem was with the defective compressor that LG manufactured and installed.

“Even if a repair is performed, [the Kenmore refrigerator] … remains substantially certain to fail within two to three years because LG and its authorized technicians use the same defective parts as replacements,” the plaintiffs said. 

Instead of offering refunds, LG “attempted futile repairs or replaced defective compressors with other defective compressors,” according to the lawsuit. 

They further point to two class action lawsuits relating to Kenmore refrigerators LG has settled. 

Clark v. LG Electronics U.S.A. “placed LG on notice of the defective nature” of its compressors in 2013 by focusing on its Smart Cooling System. Despite settling those claims, the filing says LG continued to sell these Kenmore refrigerators. 

Six years later in Bentley v. LG Electronics U.S.A. Inc., Kenmore refrigerators were facing legal action again but have recently reached a proposed settlement.

That settlement, however, does not include the compressors identified in this current class action lawsuit, plaintiffs said. 

Beyond previous cases, the plaintiffs in this class action lawsuit further describe the thousands of complaints from customers who bought Kenmore refrigerators and “overwhelmed” repair people called in to fix them. 

LG “has had exclusive and direct knowledge of the scale of the compressor problems from its communications with its authorized repair personnel, who have been inundated by repair requests for years,” the filing alleges. 

Customers who bought these Kenmore refrigerators expressed feelings of frustration over having to do these repairs so soon after buying them, according to the class action lawsuit, citing an expectation that such appliances have a 13-year average lifespan. 

In one online complaint cited in the class action lawsuit, a customer describes how one repairman stayed prepared by keeping spare Kenmore refrigerators compressors in his truck after “he had replaced 7 already in July.” 

Plaintiffs further reference extensive media coverage on the defective Kenmore refrigerators, citing five specific stories from network broadcast affiliates from across the country. 

News stations from San Diego to Connecticut were airing interviews with frustrated Kenmore refrigerator customers and technicians dealing with faulty compressors. 

Kenmore refrigerators “are failing quite pandemically,” a repair person was quoted saying in one of those stories, according to the lawsuit. “It’s a national thing.”

Formally, the plaintiffs are accusing LG and their Kenmore refrigerators of breach of warranty, violations of the Magnuson-Moss Warranty and New Jersey Consumer Fraud acts and fraud by concealment.

Have you purchased a Kenmore refrigerator with an LG compressor? Have you had it replaced or repaired? Let us know in the comments below. 

Counsel representing the plaintiffs in the Kenmore refrigerator class action lawsuit is Olimpio Lee Squitieri of Squitieri & Fearon LLP. 

The Kenmore refrigerator class action lawsuit is Marriott, et al. v. LG Electronics U.S.A. Inc., Case No. 2:20-cv-14514, in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey.