Past Cases

Ariza v. Luxottica Retail North America (LensCrafters)

Status Past Case

Practice area Consumer Protection

Court U.S. District Court, Eastern District of New York

Case number 1:17-cv-05216-PKC-RLM

Overview

On September 27, 2024, the Honorable Pamela K. Chen for the United States Eastern District of New York granted final 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 claimed, 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 claimed 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 alleged 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 alleged 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 were therefore induced to purchase prescription eyeglasses from LensCrafters when they otherwise would not have had to and/or overpaid for prescription eyeglasses from LensCrafters based on false and misleading statements, and suffered damages.

Case name: Ariza v. Luxottica Retail North America (LensCrafters), No. 1:17-cv-05216-PKC-RLM, (E.D.N.Y.)