Medify Air Purifiers Ads CADR Rating, Room Size, Covid Effects Class Action

Air purifiers have become popular in recent years in large part because of Covid-19. Medify Air, LLC makes air purifiers, but the complaint for this class action alleges that it misleads consumers, both in the figures it advertises relating to air purification as well as in the fact that the company’s machines have not been tested on SARS-CoV-2 particles.

The class for this action is all persons who bought the products in the US or, alternatively, in California, for personal use and not for resale, between January 7, 2018 through the present.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the complaint says, the main route to infection with SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes Covid-19) is “exposure to respiratory droplets containing the virus[]…” For this reason, in 2020, the complaint claims, the demand for air purifiers increased by 57% and is expected to continuing growing.

The most significant measure for air purifiers seems to be the Clean Air Delivery Rate (CADR), which means the cubic footage of contaminant-free air delivered per minute. The complaint claims, “CADR is the only air purifier standard recognized by the America National Standards Institute (ANSI).”

However, air purifiers cannot perform at equal rates for all pollutants. Devices have separate CADR scores for tobacco smoke, pollen, and dust. Room sizes also make a difference, with higher CADR ratings recommended for larger rooms. The complaint reproduces a chart from AirPurifier.org that begins with a 155 square foot room and a recommendation of a CADR of 100, up to a room of “697 square feet and above” with a recommendation of a CADR of 450.

The complaint reviews advertising claims for several Medify air purifiers. For example, it alleges that Medify advertises that the Medify MA-40 has a CADR of 380 and that it is able to “clean large spaces of up to 1,600 ft2 in one hour, 840 ft2 in 30 minutes…”

However, the complaint alleges, when Medify sought an energy star certification for its MA-40, it reported to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) CADR rates of 186 for dust, 206 for smoke, and 246 for pollen in a room of 319 square feet.

The complaint alleges that the advertising is false or misleading because it gives a false CADR rate; it does not tell which substance the stated CADR rate applies to; and it misleads about the size of the room in which the device can effectively be used.

Furthermore, the complaint alleges that Medify advertised “all of its air purifiers as having been tested to remove 99.99% of airborne SARS-CoV-2 particles from the air. In reality, [Medify] has not tested a single air purifier to confirm whether or not its air purifiers are capable of destroying the virus particles.”

Article Type: Lawsuit
Topic: Consumer
Tags: Deceptive Advertising, Deceptive Labels, False or Misleading Performance Figures, Item Does Not Do What It Is Advertised to Do