Samsung Class Action Lawsuit Alleges ‘LED’ TVs are Misbranded

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Samsung faces a proposed class action lawsuit over allegations that it misrepresents several of its televisions as “LED TVs” when in fact they are merely LCD-display units illuminated by an LED light source.

Plaintiff Frank Nance says he chose to pay a little more for a Samsung television branded as an LED unit because he understood LED televisions offer better performance than LCD models.

Nance says he had a choice among Samsung televisions: some were labeled as LED units, and others were labeled as LCD units. But the difference in technology and quality he thought he was getting turned out to be fictitious, according to this Samsung class action lawsuit.

The plaintiff says that televisions using an LCD display, or liquid crystal display, generate their images using a thin film of crystals that alternately block light or transmit it through a layer of color filters at the front of the screen, according to how an electric charge passes through those crystals. In earlier LCD televisions, that light source was a cold cathode fluorescent light, or CCFL. Later models used a light-emitting diode, or LED.

Samsung was allegedly aware of the difference when it began marketing its LED-lit LCD televisions. A Samsung press release from 2008 identifies one series of televisions as being an “LED LCD HDTV” and as an “LED-Backlit LCD HDTV,” according to Nance.

The plaintiff claims that later Samsung began marketing televisions with this same backlight technology as “LED TVs,” as if they used a different and superior technology. Nance says that nowhere in the labeling of these units did Samsung clarify that they were merely LCD screens illuminated by an LED light.

Furthermore, Nance says using an LED as the light source doesn’t add quality to an LCD television, since any type of white light source can be used.

Nance seeks to represent a nationwide Class consisting of everyone who, for their own personal use and within the applicable statute of limitations period, bought a Samsung LED-lit LCD television that was packaged as an LED TV, LED HDTV or LED television. He is also proposing a California subclass consisting of residents of that state in the same situation.

Nance seeks restitution of his and future Class Members’ money spent purchasing these televisions, plus damages, attorneys’ fees and court costs, with interest. He also wants a court order directing Samsung to cease its allegedly deceptive activity and to begin a corrective marketing campaign to clear up the purported misinformation.

Counsel for the plaintiff and the proposed Class are Jonathan Shub of Kohn Swift & Graf; Hayward J. Kaiser and Gilbert S. Lee of Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp; Francis O. Scarpulla and Patrick B. Clayton of Scarpulla Law Firm; Daniel R. Shulman, Gregory R. Merz, Kathryn J. Bergstrom, and Dean C. Eyler of Gray Plant & Mooty.

The Samsung LED TV False Advertising Class Action Lawsuit is Nance v. Samsung Electronics America Inc., Case No. 8:16-CV-00704, in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.