Lumber Liquidators Settle California Clean Air Action for $2.5M

North America’s biggest specialty retailer of hardwood flooring, Lumber Liquidators, is paying $2.5 million to settle claims that some of its products violated California air-safety standards. The company faced allegations that it sold imported composite wood products that exceeded state formaldehyde limits and didn’t take enough precautions to meet public health guidelines.

The California Air Resources Board (“CARB”) adopted the Airborne Toxic Control Measure to protect the public from toxic exposures to formaldehyde form composite wood products and noted this instance is an example of the Board enforcing the regulation. Under the rules, companies must label finished products as made with certified compliant composite wood products, keep records showing they bought compliant products, and tell distributors and retailers that their flooring complies with California’s regulations.

After the settlement announcement, Lumber Liquidators made a statement that the products were sourced from China and the company stopped selling them in May 2015, in addition to the fact CARB never made a formal finding of violation or admission of wrongdoing, or acknowledged any evidence of actual harm to public health.

As a response to the issue, Lumber Liquidators has strengthened its quality-assurance procedures and launched the biggest voluntary testing program of its kind in the U.S. These new programs will require regular audits of existing and new supplies, as well as random testing of composite core samples.

The company has recently been slammed with more than 100 suits arising from its sale of laminate flooring made in China. These suits have been consolidated in Virginia for pretrial proceedings and all allege that the flooring contain unsafe levels of formaldehyde.

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