Class Action Lawsuit Says Lumber Liquidators Sold Illegally Sourced Toxic Wood

A class action lawsuit has been filed against Lumber Liquidators for allegedly selling flooring made with Chinese wood that does not comply with federal toxicology standards and is illegally sourced.

Donnie Williamson, Melissa Stini and Jennifer Hogencamp are the three plaintiffs bringing the class action lawsuit against the flooring company in Virginia federal court. They claim that “Lumber Liquidators manufactures, sells, and distributes Chinese Flooring that emits and off-gasses excessive levels of formaldehyde.”

Formaldehyde, the class action lawsuit explains, “is categorized as a known human carcinogen by the United States National Toxicology Program and the International Agency for Research Cancer.”

According to the class action lawsuit, Lumber Liquidators states on product labels and its website that their flooring materials comply with formaldehyde regulations, however, the plaintiffs allege that the emissions that come from Lumber Liquidators’ flooring products from China are “multiple times” what is allowed according to the “standards at the time of purchase.”

The class action lawsuit claims there is often formaldehyde in wood flooring that is used in the adhesives and resins used to manufacture the wood floors.

The lawsuit also charges the flooring company with selling wood that is illegally sourced from countries such as China and Russia that threaten endangered species, which is in violation of the Lacey Act.

On Sept. 26, Lumber Liquidators’ headquarters in Toano, Virginia, was raided by federal agents from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Homeland Security Investigations unit, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Justice Department.

The raid confirmed that “Lumber Liquidators is importing wood products harvested from forests in eastern Russia (which are then processed across the border in China) that are the habitat of critically endangered wildlife species, including the Siberian tiger, of which there are an estimated 450 remaining in the world,” the class action lawsuit states.

The Plaintiffs claim that they “would have paid significantly less, if they purchased Chinese flooring at all, had they known that the products were sourced from endangered habitats and contained elevated levels of the toxin formaldehyde.”

The Lumber Liquidators lawsuit cites a report published on the website Seeking Alpha, which mailed samples of the flooring at issue in the complaint to be tested and found that the formaldehyde levels were 3.5 times what is considered the legal limit.

According to the class action lawsuit, the flooring company responded to the report by putting what it had left of the products at issue on sale.

The complaint also includes another report published by the Environmental Investigation Agency, which alleges that Lumber Liquidators either knew or should have known that the wood from China was illegally sourced.

Lumber Liquidators is a very successful company approximately 300 stores and $800 million in revenue.

“Unfortunately, one of the primary reasons Lumber Liquidators has grown so quickly and its profits have surged has been through the company’s misrepresentations about formaldehyde levels of its products and through its sourcing of cheap (and illegal) lumber from China,” the plaintiffs claim.

The three plaintiffs from Florida, Massachusetts and Texas charge the flooring company with violating the Lacey Act and the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act as well as with unjust enrichment, breach of warranties, and violating business laws.

They are asking for unspecified damages, punitive damages, and want their flooring replaced with non-toxic wood that is legally sourced.

The plaintiffs are represented by Block & Leviton LLP, Grant & Eisenhofer PA, Hausfeld LLP and Dimuroginsberg PC.

The Lumber Liquidators Wood Class Action Lawsuit is Donnie Williamson, et al. v. Lumber Liquidators Holdings Inc., Case No. 1:13-cv-01487, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.

UPDATE: Several Lumber Liquidators class action lawsuits were consolidated into a multidistrict litigation (MDL), or mass tort, and transferred to a Virginia federal court by the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML), alleging that the flooring company sold wood floors containing toxic levels of formaldehyde.