The ink is barely dry on Supreme Court decision invalidating tariffs under President Trump’s 2025 executive orders, and a class action lawsuit for failure to pass those tariff refunds on to consumers has already been filed. In Ward v. EssilorLuxottica, a sunglass purchaser has brought a putative class action against a major global eyewear conglomerate and related entities in federal court in New York claiming that the companies improperly retained tariff-related price increases (claimed to be “tariff surcharges”) collected from U.S. consumers after the U.S. Supreme Court held that the underlying tariffs were unlawful.
Last year, when the President implemented new tariffs on various countries, EssilorLuxottica publicly announced price increases in the U.S. across product lines for goods imported into the country. Subsequently, the conglomerate, along with many other companies that import consumer goods for sale into the United States, filed suit in the Court of International Trade arguing that the tariffs should be invalidated because they exceeded the President’s executive powers. The Court agreed, and on appeal, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the decision. The case then went to the U.S. Supreme Court, which on February 20, 2026, struck down the tariffs.
In his class action suit, Plaintiff Ward asserts claims against the defendants for money had and received, unjust enrichment, deceptive trade practices violations under Ohio and New York statutes, and declaratory relief concerning rightful ownership of the tariff surcharges. Notably, the complaint does not allege that Ward or other consumers asked the defendants for, or were denied, refunds of the portion of the purchase prices they paid attributable to the tariffs. Rather, the plaintiff attempts to imply that EssilorLuxottica intends to retain the tariff surcharges by noting that other companies, such as FedEx, have publicly announced an intention to pass any tariff refunds from the government on to consumers, and EssilorLuxottica has not.
The trigger-happy nature of this complaint filing creates several difficulties for the plaintiff and opportunities for the defendants to get the case dismissed. The most obvious issue is ripeness and the lack of justiciable controversy. While EssilorLuxottica may not have yet announced a refund intention, it has not announced that it will *not* issue refunds, and no refunds have yet been granted to companies by the government to even allow them to pass them on at this time.
The equitable claims for money had and received and unjust enrichment—which are quasi-contractual claims that may not stand where a contract governs the transaction at issue—may be subject to dismissal on the grounds that a contract for the purchase of a good supersedes these claims, and consumers specifically agreed to an all-in purchase price for an item, not to a breakdown for the base price of an item plus a separate tariff charge on top. Finally, the deceptive trade practices claims may be countered on the grounds that EssilorLuxottica had publicly disclosed that its companies had to raise prices due to tariffs and never promised that those fees would be contingent upon an inability to obtain refunds from the government in the future. Further, pricing decisions are routinely made based upon cost inputs, supporting an argument that there was no false or misleading conduct to underpin these consumer protection claims.
While there are good grounds to dismiss the complaint in the Ward case at this juncture, companies that implemented tariff‑related price increases and are now pursuing duty refunds may face similar claims, particularly where they have not clearly addressed whether and how any refunds will be shared with end consumers. Companies should therefore keep these potential claims in mind when determining how to handle tariff refunds.
To learn more about the issues raised in this client alert, please contact Cassandra Porsch at cporsch@potomaclaw.com.
Note: This alert is for general use and should not be construed to provide legal advice as to particular factual situations.
