Overview
On September 20, 2023, the Honorable Pamela K. Chen for the United States Eastern District of New York granted preliminary approval of a $39 million settlement of this certified false advertising consumer protection class action against Luxottica Retail North America.
Purchasers of LensCrafters’ Accufit Digital Measurement System (Accufit) services claimed that LensCrafters used false, misleading advertising and deceptive sales practices about Accufit being “five times more accurate” in measuring pupillary distance than traditional methods, to induce customers to purchase LensCrafter’s higher-priced prescription lens products.
On February 2, 2018, the court appointed Cohen Milstein as Interim Class Counsel.
Case Background
LensCrafters advertises that its AccuFit system “measures your eyes five times more precisely than traditional methods, down to a tenth of a millimeter” and they claim that this allows the company to manufacture prescription eyeglasses. Thus, LensCrafters promises better prescription eyeglasses that allow customers “to see your world more clearly,” as “[y]our lenses are crafted based on exactly how glasses sit on your face, where your eyes line up in the frame, and the distance between your eyes—putting the prescription exactly where you need it to see your best.”
Plaintiffs claim, LensCrafters cannot and does not deliver what it promises. Even assuming its AccuFit system can provide pupillary distance (PD) measurements down to a tenth of a millimeter, when it manufactures prescription eyeglasses, Plaintiffs claim that LensCrafters uses decades-old technology that still involves manual measurements that must be rounded up to a full millimeter. Indeed, Lenscrafters’ AccuFit system provides no more accuracy in manufacturing prescription eyeglasses than when measuring PD with a standard ruler.
Plaintiffs further allege that because LensCrafters’ manufacturing process uses the same decades-old traditional methods, the end-product sold to customers cannot and does not have PD measurements that are “five times” more accurate than traditional methods.
Plaintiffs further allege that LensCrafters’ employees are trained to push the AccuFit system as a selling point, telling customers that AccuFit ensures more accurate prescription eyeglasses and emphasizing to customers that they can only use AccuFit measurements at LensCrafters. Customers are therefore induced to purchase prescription eyeglasses from LensCrafters when they otherwise would not have and/or overpay for prescription eyeglasses from LensCrafters based on false and misleading statements, and suffer damages.
Case name: Ariza v. Luxottica Retail North America (LensCrafters), No. 1:17-cv-05216-PKC-RLM, (E.D.N.Y.)