Mercedes-Benz Wants Gas Tank Defect Class Action Stopped

Top Class Actions’s website and social media posts use affiliate links. If you make a purchase using such links, we may receive a commission, but it will not result in any additional charges to you. Please review our Affiliate Link Disclosure for more information.

A Mercedes-Benz gas tank defect class action lawsuit should be dismissed, according to the German automaker, because Daimler AG and Mercedes-Benz USA LLC were not involved in the transactions that led to the current owners’ possession of the vehicles, and therefore owes no duty under state protection laws to warn people of potential defects.

According to the original gas tank defect class action lawsuit, Mercedes-Benz E-Class models sold in model years 2003-2009 have a gas tank defect can lead to vapor escaping into the cabin or gas leaking out of the tank onto other surfaces. The resulting exposure to passengers in the cabin or the potential for the fuel to ignite could cause a fire. However, the judge had already trimmed some of the claims, and Daimler argued the court should dismiss the rest of the Mercedes-Benz class action lawsuit.

For example, the lead plaintiff alleges he bought the Mercedes-Benz E-Series from a man who provided him with service records that were detailed enough to include a repair order stating, “Gas smell when filled up, check recall campaign.” So while McCabe said that if he had reviewed the service records he wouldn’t have bought the car, he did have access to them, according to the carmaker’s motion for summary judgment of the class action lawsuit.

The other plaintiffs face similar problems, according to the carmaker. They were buyers of secondhand Mercedes-Benz E-Series that were out of their respective warranties, and therefore had no connection with Mercedes-Benz. In fact, the plaintiffs in the class action lawsuit could not allege fraud, the defense team argues, because Mercedes-Benz did not even know that they existed and could therefore not engage, except unwittingly, in a campaign of misrepresentations.

Put more simply, in most of the cases, “there is no evidence that Defendants conveyed a false impression by making a partial disclosure, since [the plaintiffs] do not allege that Defendants disclosed anything to them at all.” The motion for summary judgment also argues that there are few, if any, cases where a state court, or federal court acting on state law, places liability on manufacturers after the term of warranty and especially after a change of ownership.

The plaintiffs are represented by Cale Conley, Ranse Partin and Matthew Q. Wetherington of Conley Griggs Partin LLP, and Neil A. Goro and Joseph M. Dunn of Wigington Rumley Dunn & Ritch LLP.

The Mercedes-Benz Gas Tank Defect Class Action Lawsuit is McCabe, et al. v. Daimler AG, et al., Case No. 1:12-cv-2494, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.