Central AC Warranties Amount to Hot Air
Goodman and Amana air conditioning units are at the center of a new class action lawsuit. Apparently, the company knew its AC units were defective, but sold them anyway without warning consumers or issuing a recall. Products sold with inherent defects of this nature often violate product warranties issued by manufacturers. These warranties, by law, are intended to protect consumers when purchased products fail to perform as reasonable expected. In the case of defective central air units sold by Goodman and Amana, products warranties may have been violated in several ways.
The central air units at issue in the current class action lawsuit are intended to work in the following manner:
(1) All conditioners use the chemical refrigerant Freon to cool air. Freon is a liquid that, when converted to gas, absorbs heat in the surrounding air. The air conditioning units in peoples’ homes, which are usually located on the outside of the house, basically use fans to force the hot air from the outside through the system’s “evaporator coils” where it is then cooled by the Freon and blown into the house through air ducts;
(2) The Goodman and Amana evaporator coils prematurely break and crack when the AC is in use, which results in Freon leakage. Once the Freon escapes, the units fails to function properly and can no longer cool the air as intended. The Goodman and Amana evaporator coils break under regular, normal use, in the absence of any fault attributable to the consumer. Rather, according to the lawsuit, the evaporator coils were simply manufactured defectively and were “unfit” for ordinary use
According to court documents, the Goodman and Amana AC user manuals specifically stated that the air conditioning units were “free from defects in materials and workmanship that affect performance under normal use and maintenance.” The units at issue carried a 5-year warranty and up to a10-year warranty if consumers registered the product online within 60 days of it being installed. The company promised to replace any defective parts at no cost to the purchaser.
In addition to the “express warranty” Goodman made in that its AC units were “free from defects”, the law also imposes certain “implied warranties” on manufacturers. Under the law, regardless of whether a manufacture extends express promises about its products, the law provides an “implied warranty” that a product will function properly, that it is “fit” for its intended purpose, and that it should work as a consumer would normally expect.
Lawyers representing consumers who bought defective Goodman AC’s claim that the company knew about the defects and nevertheless proceeded to sell the units – or at least failed to properly recall the products once a problem was identified. The lawsuit seeks damages for those who incurred repair or replacement costs and for defective units to be replaced.
Anyone who bought a Goodman or Amana air conditioning unit since January 2008 may be eligible to join the class action lawsuit and is urged to contact the law firm of Audet and Partners LLP for more information. Call today at (800) 965-1461 or request a free, no obligation consultation by completing and submitting the form to the right of this page.
