Volkswagen Class Action Says Former Owners Lost Vehicle Value

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A new Volkswagen class action lawsuit seeks compensation for former Volkswagen owners and lessees who have been excluded from previous emissions scandal settlements.

These 26 plaintiffs from 21 different states all say they owned or leased a Volkswagen or Audi vehicle equipped with the now-famous “defeat device,” designed to yield falsely lowered emissions testing results.

These particular plaintiffs say they no longer owned their affected vehicles by the time the EPA announced the scandal on Sept. 18, 2015. For that reason, they’ve been excluded from several recent Volkswagen class action settlements that benefitted affected drivers who owned or leased their vehicles after that date.

These plaintiffs now claim that they too suffered economic losses in the form of reduced value of their vehicles. Plaintiffs say they paid a premium for their Volkswagen and Audi vehicles in reliance on the company’s representations that the vehicles produced lower emissions.

But as the emissions-reducing technology turned out to be a fraud, these plaintiffs now argue they paid far more for the affected vehicles than they were worth. They are now seeking compensation for the emissions-reduction technology they paid for but allegedly never received.

One of the named plaintiffs, Jennifer Nemet of Alabama, says she bought a 2013 Volkswagen Passat TDI in February 2013. She traded it in in November 2014, before the EPA’s announcement.

Nemet says she didn’t know the vehicle was equipped with an emissions-cheating device until long after she traded it in. She says she purposely paid extra for the vehicle based on Volkswagen’s representations that it was an environmentally-friendly vehicle that would produce lower diesel emissions.

It was not until later that she found out the vehicle was something far less than what she paid for, she claims.

This Volkswagen class action lawsuit is just one action in the mountain of civil and criminal litigation that ensued after the Volkswagen emissions scandal became public. In the EPA’s September 2015 announcement, it said it had discovered evidence that certain Volkswagen diesel engines were designed to cheat emissions tests, then allow the engines to emit substantially more pollution during real-world driving.

The plaintiffs in this Volkswagen class action lawsuit were not included in an earlier Volkswagen settlement reached last year. That settlement totaling $14.7 billion provided compensation only for persons who owned their eligible vehicles on or after the date of the EPA’s announcement, and only for owners of certain 2.0-liter vehicles.

Another $1.2 billion settlement covered owners of 3.0-liter vehicles. A third settlement worth $327.5 million resolved claims against Bosch, the company that supplied Volkswagen with cheat device components.

In the current Volkswagen class action lawsuit, the plaintiffs propose a nationwide Class and 21 state-specific subclasses. Proposed Class Members include all persons who owned, leased or otherwise acquired an eligible vehicle before Sept. 18, 2015 and whose lease or ownership interest in that vehicle had ended by that date.

Eligible vehicles include more than a dozen Volkswagen and Audi models with 2.0-liter and 3.0-liter engines. The 2.0-liter models are:

• Volkswagen Jetta TDI 2009-2015
• Volkswagen Jetta SportWagen TDI 2009-2014
• Volkswagen Beetle TDI 2012-2015
• Volkswagen Beetle Convertible TDI 2012-2015
• Audi A3 TDI 2010-2015
• Volkswagen Golf TDI 2010-2015
• Volkswagen Golf SportWagen TDI 2015
• Volkswagen Passat TDI 2012-2015

Class vehicles with 3.0-liter engines include:

• Volkswagen Touareg TDI 2009-2016
• Audi A6 Quattro TDI 2014-2016
• Audi A7 Quattro TDI 2014-2016
• Audi A8 TDI 2014-2016
• Audi A8L TDI 2014-2016
• Audi Q5 TDI 2014-2016
• Audi Q7 TDI 2009-2016

The plaintiffs are asking the court to order Volkswagen and Audi to set up a reimbursement program that will fully compensate the plaintiffs and Class Members for their economic losses. They also seek awards of damages, restitution and disgorgement, court costs and attorneys’ fees, and any other remedy the court sees fit to grant.

Plaintiffs’ counsel are Shana E. Scarlett and Steve W. Berman of Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP and Stuart M. Paynter of The Paynter Law Firm PLLC.

The Volkswagen Former Owners and Lessees Cheat Device Class Action Lawsuit is Jennifer Nemet, et al. v. Volkswagen Group of America Inc., et al., Case No. 3:17-cv-04372, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

UPDATE: On Dec. 8, 2017, VW urged a federal judge to trim claims in a class action filed by diesel car owners who sold their vehicles before the infamous “defeat device” scandal was revealed.

UPDATE 2: On Aug. 24, 2018, Volkswagen tried to ditch another emissions class action lawsuit, this time filed by drivers who sold their cars before the scandal broke in which the company admitted to using software to defraud emissions regulators.

UPDATE 3: On Jan. 15, 2019, former VW car owners who say they overpaid for their diesel vehicles face another motion to dismiss their Volkswagen emissions cheating class action lawsuit.