A lawsuit was filed against Lumber Liquidators Thursday in California by consumers who claim the laboratories employed by Lumber Liquidators to analyze the retailer’s home air quality testing are not accredited to test for formaldehyde, according to The New York Times.
The testing kits were sent to consumers by Lumber Liquidators after a “60 Minutes” episode reported that the retailer’s Chinese-made laminate flooring contained high levels of formaldehyde that would make the product illegal to sell in California under the state’s CARB Phase 2 regulations.
Since the show aired, Lumber Liquidators has continued to deny that its product contains excessive levels of formaldehyde. Last week, the company said in a statement that this new lawsuit is “entirely without merit,” according to the Times.
The lawsuit specifically claims that Pure Air Control Services, parent company of the labs named in the lawsuit, is not American Industrial Hygiene Association-accredited to test for formaldehyde, and the AIHA has confirmed that, according to the Times.
The company is accredited by the AIHA, but for the association’s environmental microbiology laboratory program.
“The analogy is you have cancer, well, we’re going to set you up with a doctor, but they don’t tell you the doctor’s a chiropractor,” Alexander Robertson, the plaintiffs’ lawyer, told the Times. “Rather than giving the customers all of the facts, we allege that this is a campaign or a scheme to try and lull the customers into a false sense of security that the laminate floors are safe.”
A Lumber Liquidators spokesperson told the Times that the Pure Air Control subsidiary that conducted the tests did use accredited laboratories.
