The Environmental Protection Agency scrutinized the home air-quality tests that Lumber Liquidators sent to customers concerned with the formaldehyde emissions of the Chinese-made laminate flooring they bought from the retailer and installed in their homes.
In a question and answer section the agency’s website, the EPA said home air testing kits like the ones sent by Lumber Liquidators may not give useful information due to a number of factors, including a lack of health-based standards for formaldehyde levels in indoor air and that air testing does not provide information on specific sources of formaldehyde.
Lumber Liquidators has sent thousands of air quality test kits to customers since a “60 Minutes” report in March claimed its Chinese-made laminate flooring contained unsafe levels of formaldehyde. As of May 1, the company reported that 3,400 test kits had been analyzed and 97 percent of them did not find formaldehyde levels outside of the guidelines set by the World Health Organization.
Meanwhile, a North Carolina mother took Lumber Liquidators to small claims court and won, according to The News & Observer.
The woman had installed a Chinese-made laminate from Lumber Liquidators in her daughter’s room and then noticed her family start to get sick. The laminate product she had purchased was one of the products identified by “60 Minutes,” and she decided to sue for a refund.
She won her case and received $795.85 from the judgment.
Because it was in small claims court, no transcript was recorded and the ruling cannot be used as precedent in any of the class action lawsuits filed against Lumber Liquidators, which number more than 100.
