A federal court in Illinois has dismissed a lawsuit challenging L.L. Bean’s new, more limited, return policy.

A Bean customer, Victor Bondi, filed the lawsuit in February, three days after Bean ended its unlimited return policy, saying it had been abused by customers returning worn-out shirts, boots, jackets and other goods. The company’s new policy is to accept returns on items purchased in the previous year or if there has been a manufacturing defect.

U.S. District Judge Robert W. Gettleman dismissed the suit, saying Bondi anticipated that the Freeport-based retailer would no longer honor the return policy for items bought prior to Feb. 9, when the company announced its new policy.

Gettleman said the company’s statement about the new policy never included that language.

Items bought before that date “are not subject to the new one-year restriction on returns,” Bean spokeswoman Carolyn Beem said in an email Tuesday.

She said the company was pleased with the ruling.

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“As we have maintained from the outset, this suit is without merit and the complaint misstated L.L. Bean’s policies,” she wrote.

Bondi sought to make the suit a class action, in which other Bean customers could join. Settlements in class action lawsuits typically run to millions of dollars with each customer receiving a small cash payment.

Gettleman said that, contrary to Bondi’s contention, the statement announcing the new policy “contains no definite, unequivocal manifestation of an intent to no longer honor the old warranty for items purchased before February 9, 2018.”

Instead, he said, it appeared Bean was adopting a new return policy for goods purchased after that date. At best, the judge said, the language could be considered ambiguous, and “ambiguity, however, does not amount to anticipatory repudiation.”

Gettleman also dismissed another claim in Bondi’s lawsuit which alleged that Bean had engaged in deceptive marketing because the unlimited return policy had been trumpeted in Bean catalogs. Gettleman said that argument failed as well because Bean wasn’t refusing to honor its policy for purchases before Feb. 9 and also because Bondi hasn’t suffered any damages.

A call to Bondi’s lawyers in Chicago was not immediately returned.

In this Friday, Feb. 2, 2018, photo Dawn Segars accepts a customer’s returned items at the LL Bean retail store in Freeport. (AP file photo)

In this Friday, Feb. 2, 2018, photo Dawn Segars accepts a customer’s returned items at the LL Bean retail store in Freeport. (AP file photo)


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