Canon Hit With Another Defective Printer Class Action Lawsuit

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Canon USA, Inc. was hit with another class action lawsuit by a New York man who alleges that several of the company’s Pixma printers are defective and fail prematurely.

Plaintiff Marcus Ho claims in his Canon printer class action lawsuit filed on July 10 that he bought a Canon Pixma printer (model MG5320) in January 2012 online at Buy.com.

According to Ho, not long after his Canon printer was passed its one year warranty, it displayed an error message, “U052,” at which point it “became completely inoperable.”

Ho claims that he “contacted Canon about the problem in or around June of 2014.” However, “Canon refused to repair or replace the printer for free because it was outside the warranty period.”

The New York man alleges that “the defective printers suffer from a uniform design defect that causes them to fail prematurely, and well before the end of their useful lives.”

Ho claims that his particular model isn’t the only Canon printer that displays the error message “U052” before becoming inoperable, but that this happens on several of its models.

The Canon Pixma printer class action lawsuit says Canon defines the error message “as an indication that the printer does not recognize the printhead or that the printhead itself is faulty.

“If the issue cannot be successfully resolved by trouble-shooting, which it could not be in the case of Plaintiff Ho, the printer must be returned to Canon for service,” he explains in his printer lawsuit.

“Such repair is generally more expensive than purchasing a new printer,” he adds.

Ho claims that he and the other potential Class members did not know about this defect, and if they had, they would not have bought the Canon printer.

According to Ho, the printers come with a 12-month warranty.

Ho claims that Canon knew about the defect because of “prior consumer complaints” that the defect occurred within the warranty period.

However, the electronics company “refused to pay for labor or diagnostic expenses for consumers with printers manifesting the defect more than a year after purchase. Furthermore, Canon has refused to pay any part of the cost of repairing printers.”

Ho argues in his Canon printer class action lawsuit that it is reasonable to expect that Canon’s printers will “function properly well beyond the 12-month parts and labor warranty provided by Canon’s boilerplate warranties.”

He further alleges that “Canon knew or should have known” that the 12-month warranty period was “grossly inadequate to protect consumers from the defect, and would have subject consumers to expensive repair costs.”

Because of the problem, Ho contends that Canon should have recalled or repaired the defective printers, but the company refused to do either for printers outside the warranty period.

Ho alleges that “Canon committed acts and omissions with actual malice and accompanied by a wanton and willful disregard” of its customers.

This class action lawsuit is for all purchasers of the defective Canon Pixma printers named in the lawsuit, and he claims the Class is no less than 10,000 members.

Ho is charging Canon with violating New York’s consumer protection act, breach of express warranty, breach of implied warranty, and unjust enrichment.

The New York man is asking for compensatory and punitive damages as well as attorney fees.

A similar class action lawsuit was filed against Canon by a Texas man with the same allegations as Ho.

Ho is represented by Benjamin F. Johns and Joseph B. Kenney of Chimicles & Tikellis LLP and Robert I. Harwood and Peter W. Overs of  Harwood Feffer LLP.

Counsel information for Canon was not immediately available.

The Canon Printer Class Action Lawsuit is Ho v. Canon USA Inc., Case No. 2:14-cv-04255, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.

UPDATE: Claim filing instructions for the Canon printer class action settlement are now available! Click here or visit www.CanonInkjetPrinterSettlement.com for details.