Dollar General Requests MDL for Motor Oil Class Action Lawsuits

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Last week, Dollar General requested consolidation of 18 class action lawsuits that are pending against the discount store into a multidistrict litigation. The class action lawsuits all allege that Dollar General sold motor oil that was obsolete, causing damage to many newer vehicles without providing proper warning to consumers.

Dollar General proposed the consolidation of the lawsuits that are in various states that all have the same “central factual allegation” against the company be transferred to a single court under a single judge. The retailer also claims that the class action lawsuits “assert nearly identical causes of action,” including violations of state consumer protection laws, unjust enrichment claims and breach of warranty claims.

“Because of the common factual issues and overlapping nature of these class action lawsuits, defendant Dollar General moves for the transfer of these actions to the Eastern District of Michigan for consolidated pretrial proceedings,” the motion read.

Plaintiff David Sanchez is one of the consumers who filed a class action lawsuit in December 2015 over claims that although there were warnings printed in small lettering on the reverse of the oil bottles, they were misleading to a reasonable buyer.

The class action lawsuits allege that three kinds of motor oil sold under the Dollar General Corp. brand were being sold at the stores despite the label on one brand having a small indication that the oil is “not suitable for use in most gasoline powered automotive engines built after 1988” and the other saying “not suitable to use in most gasoline powered automotive engines built after 1930.”

Dollar General stated that if the motion to transfer the cases to a single district is approved, the multidistrict litigation will “promote efficiency and consistency” by streamlining discovery to avoid duplication, will assist in cost reduction and will help promote consistency of rulings across the cases.

Although it is based in Tennessee, Dollar General said that Michigan is the “superior forum” for the multidistrict litigation to take place because the court is already handling another consumer lawsuit involving allegations over the motor oil and that the setting has the capacity to handle an MDL and has ample experience.

If Michigan is not an option, Dollar General said that alternate locations for an MDL that would be acceptable include the Western District of Missouri or the Southern District of Florida, according to the company’s motion.

Dollar General made it a point to mention that it was not conceding that the complaints were typical or common, but said that with respect to the pretrial proceedings, they would be “more efficiently and fairly litigated in a single forum.”

As for the allegations against Dollar General as a whole, the company said that the bottled oil has a label with information on the suitability of the oil use “placed in a separate paragraph second from the top of the back label, in white font on a black background, in a size no smaller than the other informative text, in all-caps to set it apart from the surrounding paragraphs, and preceded by the eye-catching language ‘CAUTION.’”

The Dollar General Motor Oil Class Action Lawsuit is David Sanchez, et al. v. Dollar General Corp., Case No. 2:15-cv-9730, in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. The pending Dollar General MDL is In Re: Dollar General Corp. Motor Oil Litigation before the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation.

UPDATE: On Aug. 29, 2018, consumers in a Dollar General class action lawsuit regarding motor oil recently asked a federal court to certify them as a Class since many of their claims are identical.