Judge Trims Ford Tailgate Class Action Lawsuit

Ford Motor Company succeeded recently in getting some claims removed from a Ford class action lawsuit over allegations that Ford vehicles suffered from tailgate cracks due to defective designs.

The Ford tailgate crack lawsuit alleges that Ford manufactured several vehicles’ tailgates in such a way that moisture built up inside of them, slowly warping and eventually cracking the tailgate. In many cases, the alleged defect caused the tailgates to crack after the warranty expired, as the alleged defect may have taken years to work up to the full-on Ford tailgate crack.

In early October, Ford’s legal team got some of the allegations removed from the Ford tailgate crack class action lawsuit. This included three claims that had joined the Ford class action lawsuit. These claims hinged on an argument that the Magnuson-Moss Act applied — when early rulings for these specific claims found that a similar California state law didn’t apply. According to the judge, it was not plausible that the claims would qualify for compensation under this federal law when they didn’t live up to a very similar state law.

The Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act is a 1975 Act of Congress that establishes rules pertaining to warranties, both implied and explicit. Several senators tackled the issue due to complaints from constituents and pressure from the Federal Trade Commission over the widespread use of abusive warranties.

The law itself is more of a framework for individual state laws to establish their own warranty laws, as California has done, than stand-alone federal legislation. This has played into the dismissal in the Ford class action lawsuit, since the claims were unlikely to stand if they did not qualify for compensation under California’s related warranty laws.

The legal action to date has alleged that Ford was aware as early as 2002 of the issue, but continued producing vehicles with the cracked tailgate design flaw through the 2005 model year for millions of vehicles, allegedly selling defective vehicles to consumers knowing that the Ford tailgates would eventually crack, costing thousands in repairs.

The various Ford tailgate crack lawsuits that were eventually combined into the Ford class action lawsuit alleging that Ford concealed this, enriching the company while avoiding costly recalls or redesigns due to the slow-acting nature of the alleged defect.

The Ford class action lawsuit is In Re: Ford Tailgate Litigation, Case No. 2953, filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

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