Precor Users Seek Class Cert. in Treadmill Heart Rate Monitor Lawsuit

Consumers alleging that Precor’s treadmills give inaccurate heart rate readings are asking an Illinois federal judge once again to certify their class action lawsuit.

This is the second attempt the consumers have made to certify their proposed class against Precor following U.S. District Court Judge Harry Leinenweber’s decision to trim down the case last month.

In their renewed motion for certification, the consumers told the court that Precor engaged in unfair and misleading representations in marketing its heart rate monitors.

Specifically, the consumers take issue with the premium Touch Sensor feature of Precor treadmills. The feature “is supposed to allow users to monitor their heart rate ‘whether you walk or run,’” the consumers said, but “contrary to Precor’s representations, the monitoring feature does not work ‘whether you walk or run.’”

“Instead, it starts to exhibit pronounced failure when a user is walking or running at 4.0 mph. At running speeds of 6.0 mph or greater, the feature is wholly unreliable,” the group added.

Plaintiffs Gary Mednick and Steven Bayer initially filed the proposed class action lawsuit in 2014 claiming that Precor misrepresented the performance of its heart rate monitor feature on certain treadmills and exercise equipment.

Plaintiffs alleged the heart rate monitors were defective because movement could prevent the monitors from accurately measuring heart rates.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of all individuals in California, Illinois, Missouri, New Jersey, and New York who purchased a Precor Home Treadmill equipped with a Touch Sensor heart rate monitor.

However, Judge Leinenweber denied the consumers’ bid for class certification, declaring that user differences such as body size created individual questions of fact that outweighed common issues.

The judge noted that it “would require individualized inquiry into each user, each type of machine and each heart rate system at issue” to determine whether the Precor treadmill heart rate monitors failed to compensate for user’s movements.

But the consumers pushed forward, filing an amended complaint seeking to certify four Classes, two on behalf of Illinois residents and two for other states.

The amended complaint sought damages for Precor’s alleged violations of the Illinois Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act and other states’ consumer protection laws, which the plaintiffs argue are “materially similar” to Illinois law.

In September, Judge Leinenweber trimmed down the proposed Class claims, stating that since the plaintiffs “specifically alleged facts suggesting that it is extremely unlikely that they will purchase Precor’s supposed defective machines again,” that claims for injunctive relief for Precor to change its advertising of its heart rate features were moot.

He also ruled that only proposed Classes for Illinois residents and of states that have similar consumer protection laws can proceed, stating that consumer protections laws vary too much by state to allow for class action status for many states at once.

The consumers are represented by Katrina Carroll and Kyle Shamberg of Lite DePalma Greenberg LLC, Joseph Siprut of Siprut PC and Richard Gordon of Gordon Law Offices Ltd.

The Precor Defective Heart Rate Monitor Class Action Lawsuit is Mednick v. Precor Inc., Case No. 1:14-cv-03624, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

UPDATE: On Jan. 3, 2016, fitness equipment company Precor told the Court that certification is not appropriate in a class action lawsuit alleging the heart rate monitors in its treadmills are defective.

UPDATE 2: July 2019, the Precor treadmill class action settlement is now open. Click here file a claim.