Hyundai Moves to Dismiss Stalling Defect Class Action Lawsuit

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Hyundai Motor Co. has submitted a motion to dismiss a stalling defect class action lawsuit that claims Hyundai Santa Fe vehicles contain a known stalling defect in their design. The automaker claims that the stalling defect class action should be dismissed from California federal court because the plaintiffs have failed to amend the problematic deficiencies in their claims.

This is not the first time Hyundai has attempted to dismiss the stalling defect class action lawsuit. In October of last year, the South Korean-based carmaker and its American subsidiary branch filed a motion to dismiss this class action lawsuit, claiming that plaintiffs were opportunists seeking to take advantage Hyundai’s free software update campaign, designed to fix low-speed stalling in Hyundai vehicles.

The automaker essentially doubled down when it submitted its second motion for dismissal on Jan. 26 of this year, arguing:

“A week after HMA disseminated its service-campaign notice, plaintiffs Julia Reniger and Greg Battaglia rushed to the courthouse seeking to capitalize on HMA’s voluntary efforts. Not surprisingly, their hastily filed complaint had numerous defects, which HMA exhaustively detailed in its original motion to dismiss. With full knowledge of their pleading deficiencies, plaintiffs tried to remedy their complaint through two amendments that added three new plaintiffs, new claims and a new defendant … a 78-page tome that attempts to make up in bulk what it still lacks in merit and substance.”

Reniger and Battaglia originally filed this Hyundai stalling defect class action lawsuit in August 2014, alleging that 2010-2012 Santa Fe SUVs are prone to stall unexpectedly, leading to braking and steering problems for Hyundai drivers. Their second amended complaint for the Hyundai class action lawsuit further alleges claims of false advertising under California and New York consumer laws.

However, Hyundai argues that Reniger and Battaglia have failed to identify any example of false or misleading statements or advertisements put forth by the automaker, and “merely parrot the legal elements for those claims without factual support, which is not enough,” according to the motion to dismiss the stalling defect class action lawsuit.

Hyundai Motor America, the American branch of the Korean parent company, claim that the plaintiffs only ever entered into an agreement with Hyundai Motor America, not Hyundai Motor Co. They argue that the plaintiffs attempted to obscure this fact by adding both the parent company and the subsidiary in the second amended complaint for the Hyundai class action lawsuit.

Finally, Hyundai claims that the stalling defect class action lawsuit failed to demonstrate that either Hyundai Motor Co. or Hyundai Motor America knew of the stalling defect during the time Reniger and Battaglia bought their Santa Fe vehicles.

The plaintiffs and the Class are represented by Lionel Z. Glancy and Mark S. Greenstone of Glancy Binkow & Goldberg LLP.

The Hyundai Stalling Defect Class Action Lawsuit is Reniger, et al. v. Hyundai Motor America, et al., Case No. 3:14-cv-03612, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

UPDATE: On June 21, 2016, Hyundai agreed to settle a class action lawsuit accusing the car maker of concealing a stalling defect in certain Santa Fe vehicles.