September 2, 2026
The Bills Keep Mounting for Cree Lighting USA
Company assets changed hands, but supplier claims refuse to disappear
Cree Lighting USA's legal ledger grew heavier last week, with a new supplier lawsuit landing four days before a judge granted summary judgment in one of the company's other pending lawsuits.
Vision Plastics Inc., Wisconsin-based custom injection molder, sued Cree Lighting USA on August 24, alleging the company owes $294,356 for finished goods, work-in-process inventory, and raw materials manufactured to Cree specifications and left unpaid. Court filings state Vision built the parts exclusively for Cree, with no resale market elsewhere. The complaint alleges breach of contract and unjust enrichment, claims that have become familiar refrains among Cree Lighting USA's vendors.
Four days later, on August 28, Racine County Judge Eugene Gasiorkiewicz granted summary judgment to Mayville Engineering Company in its own suit over $194,484 in unpaid invoices. At the hearing, MEC's attorney, Christopher Rexroat, argued the company was out of business with no assets and asked the court to proceed to judgment. Counsel for Cree Lighting USA, Matthew Schonauer, told the judge the company had been untimely responding to discovery and asked for another chance to answer through the discovery process. The judge granted MEC's motion anyway, directing Rexroat to prepare the order.
A Tally That Keeps Climbing
Vision Plastics is now at least the fifth outside vendor to sue Cree Lighting USA over unpaid balances, joining Pace Industries, MES Inc., MEC, and Fanlight Corporation (a.k.a. NaturaLED). Combined, the claims now top $2.3 million, not counting two consolidated employee class actions alleging the company's extended 2025 furlough functioned as a disguised mass layoff.
The MEC ruling arrives as Cree Lighting USA operates in a considerably different form than when most of these disputes began. The company sold substantially all of its assets in a May 12 Article 9 auction to two newly formed Delaware entities, Lumen LED Lighting LLC and Beta LED Lighting LLC. Cree Lighting USA remains the named defendant in the pending litigation, though what assets, if any, remain to satisfy a judgment is a separate question, one Rexroat raised directly in court last week.
The consolidated ex-employee class actions, covering roughly 580 furloughed workers and the 172 employees terminated in March, are moving on a parallel track, with a Rule 16 scheduling conference set for September 3. Cree Lighting USA has actively defended that litigation. Its response to Mayville's discovery requests, by contrast, went unanswered for nearly three months before the summary judgment hearing.
The Standing Promise
Cree Lighting USA offered us one line on its legal troubles in March, telling Inside Lighting it expects to "positively, fairly and quickly resolve any disputes." That statement has now stood through five vendor lawsuits, two class actions, and one summary judgment.
Inside Lighting asked Cree Lighting USA whether that position still holds given the MEC ruling and the new Vision Plastics complaint. The company declined to comment.
