MANHATTAN (CN) — The industrial tools and household hardware company Stanley Black & Decker defended its Craftsman-brand vacuum cleaners in front of the Second Circuit Tuesday as a class of consumers sought to revive claims that the company exaggerated its products’ horsepower.
William Montgomery and Donald Wood Jr., the named plaintiffs in the class action, say they were misled by labeling and packaging that stated the vacuums could produce 5.0 and 5.5 peak horsepower, respectively, when outlet voltage standards made that impossible.
“Defendant’s vacuums are physically incapable of producing anywhere near the stated horsepower under any circumstances, given the amount of electricity delivered by the standard 120-volt outlet for which the vacuums are designed,” the consumers say in their brief.
On the vacuum’s label, where “peak horsepower” is denoted, an adjacent dagger symbol points to fine print on the bottom of the packaging. There, a disclaimer clarifies that the term denotes not the "operational horsepower of a wet-dry vacuum but rather the horsepower output of a motor, including the motor’s inertial contribution, achieved in laboratory testing.”
“A picture really is worth a thousand words,” Neal Deckant, an attorney representing the consumers, said during oral arguments on Tuesday.
He argued that a reasonable consumer wouldn't think to look at the disclaimer before buying the vacuum under a false assumption. “A consumer in a busy retail setting, who sees that… would not then look at the smaller fine print,” Deckant said.
Black & Decker says the average consumer wouldn't be purchasing a vacuum cleaner in a rush, as they might with more ordinary products. “A reasonable reader would follow the dagger and review the clarifying information on the front of the box, rather than merely relying on the consumer’s own assumptions about a term with an ambiguous meaning,” the company said in its brief.
A federal judge sided with Black & Decker, pointing to the dagger when it dismissed the consumers’ claims, finding “no reasonable consumer would have been misled by the vacuum labeling or packaging."
On appeal, U.S. Circuit Judge Guido Calabresi, a Bill Clinton appointee, asked where to draw the line between ambitious marketing and customer confusion.
"How much do we look at the statement exaggeration? That is my question," Calabresi said during oral arguments.
Black & Decker attorney John Cerreta reiterated that “peak horsepower” is an industry term that simply describes the highest level of horsepower the vacuum was able to achieve in a laboratory setting — though he conceded that the regular three-prong outlets in most American households can't support that level of power and would blow a fuse if attempted.
“It’s a long-time consumer comparison term used in the industry, and it is accurate, and it is the horsepower the motor achieves in the laboratory,” Cerreta said.
On behalf of the plaintiffs, Deckant emphasized that a consumer is not considering how a product performs in the laboratory compared to at home.
“The consumer is thinking about, what’s it going to do for me, they’re not going to think about a laboratory…these are advertised to be used in regular homes by real people,” Deckant said.
Judge Calabresi pressed that point, too, asking why include the peak lab performance horsepower at all, if it can’t be achieved at home. “I don’t care at all what happens in the laboratory,” he said.
Calabresi was joined by U.S. Circuit Judge Jose Cabranes, a Bill Clinton appointee, and U.S. Circuit Judge Raymond Lohier, a Barack Obama appointee.
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