Lumber Liquidators Facing Multiple Class Actions Over Toxic, Illegally Sourced Wood

Class action lawsuits claim Lumber Liquidators illegally sourced wood from the endangered habitat of the Siberian Tiger.

Lumber Liquidators has been hit with a third class action lawsuit over allegations it sold Chinese wood flooring materials that not only contain elevated levels of formaldehyde — a known carcinogen — but that were also illegally sourced from the habitat of the highly endangered Siberian Tiger.

The class action lawsuits began in November 2013 when company shareholders sued over an 11% decline in share value following a news report that “two accredited independent laboratories found that formaldehyde emissions from the tested product were over 3.5x the maximum legal limit even though the product was labeled as being [compliant with law].”

To make matters worse, a report by the Environmental Investigation Agency uncovered that Lumber Liquidators has allegedly been sourcing wood from a Chinese company that illegally harvests wood from the Russian Far East, where the endangered Siberian Tiger dwells.

Following the Lumber Liquidators shareholders class action lawsuit, customers in states from all over the country began suing the company for allegedly selling flooring materials that fail to comply with formaldehyde regulations and violating the Lacey Act, which prohibits plants and wildlife from being illegally taken, transported or sold.  The customer class action lawsuits also include alleged violations of the federal Racketeering (RICO) Act.

Despite exposure to a dangerous substance, the plaintiffs do not seek damages for personal injuries, but for economic reimbursement and injunctive relief.   The allegations of negligence and international environmental policy violation make the charges in the class action lawsuits amount to over $5 million.  The plaintiffs state that they would not have paid as much as they did for the wood if they had known it was toxic or illegally sourced from an endangered habitat.

Non-complaint wood had become an issue in September 2013, when federal agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Homeland Security, the United States Fish and Wildlife Services, and Justice Department searched the company’s headquarters in Toano, Virginia, and a retail location in Henrico County.  The search resulted in finding evidence that the company had not only imported non-compliant wood, but had also harvested the wood from a known Siberian Tiger habitat.

The wood discovered in the raid had been tested and traced to Eastern Russia, specifically on the border of China, where the Siberian Tiger dwells.  It is estimated that there are only 450 Siberian Tigers left in the world.  In at least one of the class action lawsuits, a report published by the Environmental Investigation Agency states that Lumber Liquidators either knew or should have known that the wood from China had been illegally taken.

This Lumber Liquidators Chinese Wood Class Action Lawsuits are: Lambert, et al. v. Lumber Liquidators Holdings Inc., Case No. 14-cv-00035; Donnie Williamson, et al. v. Lumber Liquidators Holdings Inc., Case No. 13-cv-01487; and Kiken v. Lumber Liquidators Holdings Inc. et al., Case No. 13cv00157 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.