Fiat Chrysler Faces EPA Lawsuit Over Emissions Cheating ‘Defeat Devices’

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The EPA has joined the litigation over Fiat Chrysler emissions defeat devices by filing its own enforcement action under the Clean Air Act.

On behalf of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, lawyers from the Department of Justice filed a Clean Air Act lawsuit on Monday against Fiat Chrysler and its related companies.

The EPA says Fiat Chrysler failed to disclose the existence of certain vehicle software features allegedly designed to fraudulently produce better emissions test results.

According to the complaint, the Fiat defendants unlawfully sold Ram 1500 and Jeep Grand Cherokee vehicles equipped with eight specific software-based features designed to manipulate the vehicles’ emissions output.

The EPA alleges these software features cause the vehicles to emit substantially higher levels of nitrogen oxides during real-world driving, compared to emissions released during federal emissions testing.

These software features were allegedly not disclosed to the EPA in the defendants’ applications for Clean Air Act certificates of conformity, or COCs, for these vehicles. As a result, the EPA claims, each vehicle at issue differs from the specifications in it COC application. The affected vehicles were therefore sold unlawfully and without proper certification, the EPA claims.

The vehicles at issue are close to 104,000 vehicles equipped with an EcoDiesel V6 engine and sold between 2013 and 2016. Ram 1500s and Jeep Grand Cherokees from model years 2014 through 2016 were allegedly shipped with the Fiat Chrysler emissions defeat devices described in the complaint.

Last January, the EPA formally announced that Fiat Chrysler had failed to disclose these software features in the affected vehicles. At the time, the agency was not ready to identify the software features as “defeat devices,” as the investigation was still going on.

However, an EPA spokesperson did refer to the failure to disclose the features as a “clear and serious violation of the Clean Air Act.”

This enforcement action by the EPA follows a spate of private civil litigation that has already spawned multiple consumer fraud class action lawsuits.

In December 2016, California plaintiff Jose Chavez got the jump on Fiat Chrysler by filing his own Fiat Chrysler class action lawsuit. Chavez estimates that because of the alleged defeat devices, he and other owners of affected vehicles paid as much as $4,700 more for their vehicles than they are actually worth, under the impression that they were getting an environmentally-friendly vehicle in exchange for that premium.

The EPA is asking the court to permanently enjoin Fiat and the other defendants from, among other things, selling any vehicle equipped with an unlawful Fiat Chrysler emissions defeat device. They are also asking the court to order Fiat to fix the affected vehicles so that they conform to Clean Air Act requirements.

Representing the U.S. are attorneys Jeffrey H. Wood, Leigh P. Rendé, Joseph W.C. Warren and Emily Powers of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Environmental and Natural Resources Division, with local assistance from Lynn Dodge and Daniel L. Lemisch of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Michigan. EPA attorneys Kathryn Pirotta Caballero and Caitlin Meisenbach serve as Of Counsel.

The Fiat Chrysler Emissions Defeat Device Lawsuit is United States v. Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV, et al., Case No. 2:17-cv-11633, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.

UPDATE: On June 7, 2017, a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Justice Department alleging Fiat Chrysler cheated emissions tests by using defeat devices will be moved to California to join pending litigation there, the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation ordered.