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A California man is accusing Home Depot of passing off lower-quality wood as authentic mahogany, according to a recent mislabeling class action lawsuit.
Plaintiff Clyde Golden says the wood he bought from defendant Home Depot USA Inc. was not actual mahogany as labeled. He says this wood is actually a cheaper variety of eucalyptus that does not have the characteristics consumers expect from a wood identified as true mahogany.
By mislabeling these products, Home Depot is allegedly deceiving consumers into paying too much for a lower-quality product, the Home Depot class action lawsuit claims.
Genuine mahogany has characteristics that make it highly sought after for decorative use. Golden says real mahogany is durable and easy to work with, and it has an appealing reddish-brown color that gets deeper and redder with time. For these reasons, mahogany is sought out for use in furniture building, boat building, and decorative finish carpentry.
While there are several varieties of authentic mahogany, Golden says, they all come from trees of the Meliaceae family. Wood from any other family is not true mahogany, he claims.
That’s the problem with the wood Home Depot markets as mahogany, according to this Home Depot class action lawsuit. Golden says this wood is actually eucalyptus wood from the Myrtaceae family.
This eucalyptus wood is commonly called “swamp mahogany” or “red mahogany.” But Golden says its characteristics are so different from those of real mahogany that to advertise it as mahogany is deceptive and misleading. Swamp mahogany is denser than the real thing and not as easy to work with, he says.
Other non-mahogany wood is sometimes advertised as “Santos mahogany,” a moniker which Golden says is known as a sales gimmick used to sell lower-grade lumber.
Still, Home Depot allegedly fails to make that distinction clear to consumers. Golden shows a screen shot from Home Depot’s retail website that promotes certain lumber as “finest grade” and “premium” mahogany, without identifying the wood’s precise species. Shoppers inquire about wood species in the website’s “Questions and Answers” section, but Home Depot allegedly does not respond to those questions.
“This failure to disclose the species leads consumers to believe they are purchasing a product which is substantially more valuable and desirable than the product they ultimately receive,” according to Golden’s complaint.
“Labeling and representing these products to consumers as mahogany is extremely misleading, as consumers are unknowingly induced into purchasing less desirable, lesser known species of wood, expecting the quality and prestige of true mahogany.”
Golden says that in July 2017 he purchased what he was led to believe was mahogany wood from a Home Depot store in Bakersfield. Home Depot employees told him the wood he was buying was “authentic, genuine” mahogany, he claims. He discovered later that the wood he had purchased was actually Eucalyptus rubusta, or swamp mahogany.
Had he known the true species of the wood he purchased, Golden claims, he either would have paid less for it or would not have bought it in the first place.
Golden seeks to represent a plaintiff Class that would include all California residents who since 2011 purchased wood labeled as mahogany from Home Depot either from a retail location or through the company’s retail website.
He is asking the court to award restitution and disgorgement of all funds Home Depot gained due to the alleged mislabeling, plus reimbursement of attorneys’ fees and costs of litigation, all with pre- and post-judgment interest.
Golden’s attorneys are Keith L. Altman, Solomon Radner and Ari Kresch of Excolo Law PLLC.
The Home Depot Mahogany Mislabeling Class Action Lawsuit is Golden v. Home Depot USA Inc., Case No. 2:17-at-00907, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California.
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9 thoughts onHome Depot Class Action: Customers Deceived by Mislabeled Lumber
Lori, did you read the full response from TCA?
Good grief.
Please add me
Please add me
Please add me.
Add me! Thanks
Can add me please always buy wood here
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Add me
you are a scammer