Contact Lens $40M Settlement
Thirteen online contact lens retailers have offered a combined amount of $40,000,000 to settle claims made against them by people who purchased contact lenses over the internet.
Have you ever bought contact lenses on the internet?
Did you buy contact lenses between January 1, 2004 and September 12, 2019?
If you have purchased contact lenses from online sellers sometime between those dates, you may be entitled to a settlement payment.
Eight people filed a class action suit against 13 online contact lens sellers. They claimed that the online contact lens retailers banded together and signed a non-compete agreement with each other when they advertised online. Their agreement kept them from purchasing “key words” on Google. When the plaintiffs searched on Google for the lowest-priced contact lenses by their trademark names, no link or advertising appeared. Those plaintiffs said that by banding together, the contact lens retailers stopped the plaintiffs from getting the best deals while shopping online. They kept the general public from finding lower priced contact lenses. The plaintiffs said that that non-compete agreement was, in fact, a trust that restrained trade. When the Plaintiffs could not find other retailers that sold the same brand of lenses for a lower price, the online retailers were able to charge higher prices for contact lenses.
Thompson v 1-800 Contacts, Inc., Vision Direct, Inc. Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc., Walgreen Co., Arlington Contact Lens Service, Inc., National Vision, Inc., Luxottica of America, No. 2:16-cv-01183. This case is supervised by the District Court for the District of Utah.
The online contact lens sellers named in the class suit were: Vision Direct, Walgreens, AC Lens/NVI, Luxottica, and 1-800 Contacts. They operated through the following websites: www.contactsdirect.com, www.targetoptical.com, www.lenscrafters.com, www.walgreens.com, www.aclens.com, www.visiondirect.com, and www.1800contacts.com.
You may be qualified to make a claim if:
- You purchased contact lenses from these online sellers between January 1, 2004 and September 12, 2019
- You were in the US when you purchased the contact lenses
- You purchased the contact lenses through the mentioned websites and not from a brick-and-mortar store.
You can make a claim by filling up a claim form at the settlement website by December 4, 2020.
(or copy this link to your browser: https://www.onlinecontactlenssettlement.com/)
In the claim form, you will need to state under oath the following things:
- You purchased contact lenses online from one or more of the named retailers during the period from January 1, 2004 until September 12 2019.
- You must state how much you purchased your contact lenses for.
- If you have receipts, you should provide receipts.
- September 21, 2020. This is deadline for telling the court why you don’t think the settlement is fair.
- October 20, 2020. This is the hearing when the court will decide to accept or reject the proposed settlement.
- December 4, 2020. This is the last day to file a claim. If you do not submit a claim by this date, you will not get any settlement payment.
The Settlement Administrator decides which claims are qualified and which claims will be allowed to participate in the distribution.
The retailers offered the following amounts as settlement:
1-800 Contacts, Inc. offered $15,100,000.00
Walgreens/Vision Direct offered$12,000,000.00
AC Lens/National Vision offered$ 7,000,000.00
Luxotticca offered$ 5,900,000.00
You can get as much as the maximum allowed purchases in the Plan approved by the court. The amount will depend on:
- How many qualified claims there are
- How many allowed purchases each claimant made
- Which contact lens retailer you purchased from
Note that each retailer offered a different settlement amount. Note also that the court costs, litigation fees, taxes, and other court-approved expenses will need to be deducted from the settlement fund. The Settlement Administrator will make a report of the number of approved claims and the total amount of allowed claims. The Settlement Administrator will propose a Distribution Plan which the court will then approve. The court has decided that no allowed claim will be paid less than $2.00.
If the Settlement Administrator finds that your claim is not qualified and disallows your claim, you can bring your rejected claim to the court and the court will decide whether to include your claim.
Get in touch with our experienced class action lawyers at Class Action News to get more information.
