Plaintiffs Push For Certification in Jeep Hacking Class Action Lawsuit

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Last Friday, four plaintiffs asked an Illinois federal judge to grant Class certification to a putative class action lawsuit that alleges some Fiat Chrysler vehicles are vulnerable to hacking.

They claim that as many as 1.4 million vehicle owners and lessees overpaid for the vehicles with infotainment systems that can allegedly be controlled by hackers over the internet.

The same day, FCA US LLC, the American subsidiary of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles N.V., filed a motion for summary judgment, arguing that the Jeep hacking class action lawsuit should be tossed because the plaintiffs failed to point to any known situations of the vehicles being hacked.

The Jeep hacking class action lawsuit was initially filed in 2015 after security researchers reportedly demonstrated the ability to hack into a 2014 Jeep Cherokee while it was driving on a Missouri highway. The plaintiffs allege that hackers have the ability to use the Uconnect infotainment system to shut down vehicles while they are in operation.

The affected vehicles were subject to a recall that included a free software fix, which was released days before the Wired article about the successful Jeep Cherokee hack was published. However, according to the Jeep hacking class action lawsuit, the system was still vulnerable to hacking even with the fix.

The plaintiffs claim that the defendants knew about the defect before the recall but failed to notify consumers about the Uconnect hacking risk.

Plaintiffs Brian Flynn, Michael Keith, and George and Kelly Brown, seek to certify a Class that includes: “All persons who purchased or leased vehicles in the United States, which were manufactured by FCA and which were equipped with the Uconnect 8.4A or Uconnect 8.4AN systems that were subject to the July 23, 2015 NHTSA [National Highway Traffic Safety Administration] Safety Recall campaign number 15V461.”

The plaintiffs also seek certification on various state claims on behalf of Class Members from Illinois, Missouri and Michigan.

FCA urged the judge to grant summary judgment in its favor because the plaintiffs failed to point to any evidence that a vehicle had actually been hacked. They dispute the 2015 findings by the security researchers and argue that the hack was only possible because the researchers “had an abundance of resources and money” and “had physical access to the vehicle in order to prepare the experiment.”

Further, FCA argues, the NHTSA closed its investigation into the Jeep hacking issues based on its conclusion that the software fix had eliminated the vulnerabilities that could allow a remote actor to access vehicle control systems.

A previous attempt by FCA last year to dismiss the Jeep hacking class action lawsuit was unsuccessful, although the car company was able to get some claims trimmed.

The plaintiffs are represented by Christopher Cueto and Michael Gras of the Law Office of Christopher Cueto and Stephen R. Wiggington and by Christopher D. Baucom, Lucas Pendry, IJay Palansky and Emily Buckley of Armstrong Teasdale LLP.

The FCA Jeep Hacking Class Action Lawsuit is Flynn, et al. v. FCA US LLC, et al., Case No. 3:15-cv-00855, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois.

UPDATE: On July 5, 2018, a judge agreed to certify Class Members from the states of Illinois, Michigan, and Missouri. The proposed nationwide Class was too “unwieldy,” stated the judge in his order.

UPDATE 2: On Dec. 11, 2018, the defendants in a Fiat Chrysler class action lawsuit over claims that Jeep Cherokees are vulnerable to being hacked now argue that thousands of Jeep drivers should not have been certified as a Class.