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.
Ford Motor Co. filed a motion Friday asking New York federal judge Kenneth M. Karas to dismiss a consolidated class action lawsuit accusing the automaker of misrepresenting the fuel economy of its Ford Fusion and Ford C-Max hybrid cars, arguing that their claims are preempted by federal law and are not supported by evidence.
Ford is facing 15 class action lawsuits filed by 29 different plaintiffs in 16 states who accuse the automaker of violating consumer protection laws by overstating how many miles per gallon the hybrid vehicles could achieve on their window stickers. In June, U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML) consolidated the cases into multidistrict litigation (MDL) in the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York. On Oct. 15, the plaintiffs filed a consolidated amended class action lawsuit.
In their Nov. 22 motion, Ford reminded the Court that federal law preempts any challenge to the testing and disclosure of fuel economy estimates in connection with the sale of new automobiles in the United States.
“This case is about the estimated fuel economy of 2013 Ford Fusion and C-MAX hybrid vehicles and the comprehensive and detailed federal legislative scheme that governs both the testing of estimated fuel economy for new automobiles and disclosure fuel economy estimates to consumers,” Ford argued. “In an obvious, yet insufficient, effort to save their claims from being extinguished by federal preemption, Plaintiffs obscure that the fuel economy figures on which their claims are based are estimates — not guarantees of real word fuel economy performance for every driver under all conditions.” [Emphasis in original document.]
Ford argued that the essence of plaintiffs’ claims is that the automaker acted unlawfully by concealing from them the “actual fuel economy” of the Ford hybrid vehicles. “This position is not only implausible on its face and insufficient as a matter of law, but represents a direct attack on federal law that should be deemed preempted by this Court,” Ford said.
Ford also said in its motion that the plaintiffs don’t cite but “make passing reference” to disclosure language about fuel estimates.
“Plaintiffs’ apparent solution to avoiding the dispositive effect of [the Federal Trade Commission] disclaimer language in advertisements is to plead virtually no detail about what advertisements they actually saw before purchasing their vehicles, in hopes that Ford and this Court will be unable to determine whether the required disclosure language was present in those advertisements,” Ford states. “In other words, Plaintiffs have not pleaded the most basic facts necessary to demonstrate their claims are actionable, or to place Ford on notice of its alleged wrongful conduct.”
Ford added that even if the plaintiffs were allowed to bring such a class action lawsuit, the allegations would fail because the plaintiffs did not provide enough evidence to support their claims, the motion states.
The plaintiffs are represented by Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP, Morgan & Morgan PC and Girard Gibbs LLP, among others.
The Ford Hybrid MDL is In re: Ford Fusion and C-Max Fuel Economy Litigation, MDL No. 2450, in the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation.
All class action and lawsuit news updates are listed in the Lawsuit News section of Top Class Actions
One thought on Ford Wants Hybrid Fuel Economy Class Action Lawsuits Dismissed
we have a c- max ford hybrid at point of sale /ford advertised the milage we would get as follows 47/47/47/ with 12000 miles on the clock / we only get 35 .7 not very happy /