Part 2: Your Customers Want Their Cut of $166 Billion: The Consumer Class Actions Chasing the IEEPA Tariff Refunds
Part 2 of a 3-part series on the litigation wave following the Supreme Court's IEEPA tariff ruling.
In Part 1, I mapped the structural mismatch driving the post-Learning Resources refund wars: the importer of record holds the legal right to claim a share of the roughly $166 billion in IEEPA tariff refunds, but is often not the party that actually paid the cost. Part 2 follows that money to its next stop: the consumers who say they covered the tab, and now want it back.
The Supreme Court's February 20, 2026 ruling that IEEPA does not authorize the president to impose tariffs set off a wave of consumer litigation almost immediately, with the first suits filed the same day. The cases are still early. Motions to consolidate and motions to dismiss remain pending. But two clear patterns have emerged.
Pattern 1: The Explicit Surcharge
The cleanest cases involve companies that broke the tariff out as a separate, itemized line.
Claims: Declaratory relief, unjust enrichment, money had and received
Plaintiff Matthew Reiser, a Miami resident, alleges FedEx billed him $36 for a shipment of tennis shoes from Germany, $21 in IEEPA duties and $15 in "ancillary brokerage and clearance fees," on goods that the complaint says were classified duty-free under the Harmonized Tariff Schedule. FedEx has publicly stated that if it receives refunds from the government, it will pass them back to the shippers and consumers who originally bore the charges. Reiser's suit argues that promise isn't legally enforceable, and that he's owed more than the tariff itself: the ancillary brokerage and clearance fees, which he says had no independent legal basis once the underlying duty was void.
What this means for you:
Companies that passed the tariff through as a surcharge may face a two-front problem: pursuing the government for a refund of the duties while defending against customers who want those same surcharges back.
A public commitment to refund, like FedEx's, doesn't necessarily resolve the exposure. The plaintiff here is claiming not only the tariff itself but also the ancillary fees layered on top.
Whether a company has a legal duty to chase the government refund at all may turn on its own contracts or terms of service, a question distinct from whether it must pass through any refund it does receive.
The theory isn't limited to shippers. Anyone who passed tariffs down the chain, a distributor to retailers, a retailer to consumers, may face an analogous claim.
Pattern 2: The Embedded Price Increase
The second pattern is messier, and it's reaching the largest retailers.
Claims: Unjust enrichment, money had and received, violations of consumer protection statutes across ten states
This proposed nationwide class action, brought by Illinois resident Matthew Stockov, alleges Costco raised prices on imported goods to cover IEEPA tariffs and is now positioned to also recover the tariff cost from the government, which the complaint frames as a prohibited "double recovery." The suit points to Costco CEO Ron Vachris's statement to analysts that the company would channel any refunds into "lower prices and better values," and argues that's a promise of "possible future benefit to an indeterminate group of future shoppers," not a commitment to the customers who already paid the higher prices.
Costco moved to dismiss on two grounds: that the claim isn't ripe, since Costco hasn't yet received any refund and the alleged double recovery hasn't occurred, and that nothing about the transactions was deceptive, since the customer got what he paid for and Costco never promised to refund part of the price. In a June 30, 2026 reply brief, Costco reasserted that position. The court has not yet ruled.
Similar suits are targeting other consumer brands, including the Ray-Ban maker EssilorLuxottica and Lululemon, on unjust enrichment and "money had and received" theories. The Lululemon suit, filed in Michigan federal court, alleges the retailer passed roughly $240 million in tariff costs to consumers, largely on goods manufactured in Vietnam, while simultaneously pursuing a full refund from the government.
What this means for you:
These cases lean heavily on public statements. Plaintiffs are mining CEO and CFO comments and lining price changes up against the tariff timeline. Costco's own CFO reportedly told analysts that certain price increases reflected what "the member would be able to absorb," language plaintiffs are using to draw a direct line from tariff to price.
Plaintiffs still have to prove which portion of a price increase was the tariff, not inflation, freight costs, or ordinary margin. That's a hard fact question, especially where only part of a product was tariffed or a company absorbed some of the cost. As noted in Part 1, most companies made complex, mixed responses: resourcing, rerouting, renegotiating, not a clean pass-through.
A company's business model becomes evidence. A vertical, manufacturer-to-consumer structure, as the EssilorLuxottica complaint argues, can make the causal link easier to allege. A long, multi-party distribution chain tends to make it murkier.
Causation and "deceptiveness" are separate legal questions. Even where plaintiffs can trace a price increase to a tariff, whether raising that price amounts to a deceptive practice or unjust enrichment is a distinct issue the courts haven't resolved. Retailers and wholesalers should watch how Costco's motion, and the others like it, play out.
The Bottom Line
If your company itemized a tariff surcharge, or raised consumer prices and pointed to tariffs as the reason, you may be within reach of this litigation theory, regardless of whether you're a shipper, a retailer, or a manufacturer selling direct. The strongest defense usually won't be "we didn't raise prices." It will be your ability to show, with a documented record, how much of any increase the tariff actually explains.
Next, in Part 3: the disputes nobody is livestreaming, the commercial fights moving up the supply chain, between the businesses themselves.
Disclaimer: This blog post is not legal advice. It is for informational purposes only. Reading this content does not create an attorney-client relationship. Consult with a licensed attorney to address your specific issues. Do not act upon this information without seeking professional legal counsel. IB Law Firm does not endorse any of the cited sources and is not responsible for the content of linked resources