Canon Reaches Class Action Settlement Over Printer Defect

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A class action settlement was reached between Canon USA Inc. and a group of plaintiffs, who allege that its Pixma printers are defective making them inoperable, and typically this happens after the one-year warranty is up.

Canon has agreed to pay $930,000, which will give Class Members $50 in cash or $75 for a store voucher to use in the online Canon store. The company also agreed to extend the warranty period by nine months for those who have print head problems.

“This ensures that eligible and participating settlement class members who actually experienced a print head issue will be fairly compensated,” the plaintiffs state in their motion for preliminarily approval of the class action settlement filed on Monday.

This Canon Pixma class action settlement is for anyone “who purchased one or more printers in new condition from either Canon or an authorized printer reseller, or in refurbished condition directly from Canon.”

Canon denies the allegations in the class action lawsuits, that the Pixma printers contain any kind of defect, even though the company agreed to the terms of this settlement proposal.

The first class action lawsuit Canon faced over the print head problem was filed by Plaintiff Sarah Barrett on May 23, 2014. Subsequent class action lawsuits over the same problem were filed by other plaintiffs, such as one filed by plaintiff Michael Robertson in June 2014 and plaintiff Marcus Ho in July 2014.

The plaintiffs joined together and filed a joint consolidated class action lawsuit against Canon over the alleged Pixma printer defect in September 2014.

The plaintiffs claimed in their class action lawsuits that not long after his Canon printer passed its one year warranty, it displayed an error message, “U052,” at which point it “became completely inoperable.”

Ho claimed that when he contacted Canon about the issue, “Canon refused to repair or replace the printer for free because it was outside the warranty period.”

The plaintiffs alleged 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.”

Canon said that the error message that it displayed means that the printer doesn’t “recognize the printhead or that the printhead itself is faulty.”

If that’s the case, and it isn’t possible to fix through trouble shooting, then “the printer must be returned to Canon for service.” But such repairs typically cost more than the price of a new printer, the plaintiffs explained in their class action lawsuits.

They said that if they and the other Class Members had known about this defect, they would not have bought the Canon printers.

These problems seemed to occur not long after the one-year warranty period was over, and the plaintiffs said 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.”

They argued in their class action lawsuits that Canon should have recalled or repaired the defective printers, but the company refused to do either for printers outside the warranty period.

The Canon printer class action lawsuits alleged that the company violated consumer protection laws in New York, California, and Virginia.

The plaintiffs are represented by Benjamin F. Johns and Joseph B. Kenney of Chimicles & Tikellis LLP, William B. Federman of Federman & Sherwood and Robert Ira Harwood ofHarwood Feffer LLP.

Canon is represented by Richard H. Silberberg of Dorsey & Whitney LLP.

The Canon Defective Printer Class Action Lawsuit is In Re Canon Inkjet Printer Litigation, Case No. 2:14-cv-03235, 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.