PENSACOLA – The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida recently denied World Class Water's motion to dismiss a lawsuit that claimed deceptive practices in the sale of residential water treatment systems.
The lawsuit involves multiple families who allege World Class Water essentially scammed them into purchasing home water treatment systems by creating the false impression that their home water supply was unsafe to drink.
In her Aug. 30 ruling, U.S. District Judge M. Casey Rodgers ruled that the class-action suit alleging violations of the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act can now move forward.
According to the lawsuit, Jonathan and Sydney Coffey and Valerie Van Dyke filed the class action alleging that sometime between February 2014 and June 2016 they, and other patrons of Home Depot, were sold water treatment systems from sales clerks of Delaware-based Acquion and/or World Class Water, a Georgia-based company. Acquion manufactures and markets residential water treatment systems, according to the lawsuit. World Class Water and Home Depot promoted and sold water treatment products and services.
The Coffeys and Van Dyke allege that they were given a false impression that their home water supply was "unsafe to drink." They claimed water quality tests were conducted at their homes but the results were never disclosed. Acquion and Home Depot argued that, "even if plaintiffs were misled by the water quality test, they had no duty to disclose what the test detected."
However, the court disagreed with that conclusion, writing in part, "The Florida Supreme Court has long held that a seller has a duty to disclose material information that is not equally within the ken of the buyer.”
The lawsuit alleges that based on the test results, "which invariably show the water to be contaminated, consumers purchase or agree to purchase Aquion residential water treatment systems."