Angry Wrangler And Gladiator Owners Are Taking Jeep To Court...

[whysoserious]

The evolution of the spontaneous Jeep fires...

https://carbuzz.com/jeep-wrangler-gladiator-fire-lawsuit/

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[Maximus Gladius]

And then there’s some of us that want our rigs to go up in smoke and they won’t! Anyone in this camp? Raise your hand if you’re in on a class action!

 

[sharpsicle]

…none of the plaintiffs listed have reported a fire…

Sorry, but victimless plantiffs suing over an unproven theory is a cash grab for the attorneys. Corporate ambulance chasers. Nothing more.

 

[Jefe1018]

…none of the plaintiffs listed have reported a fire…

Sorry, but victimless plantiffs suing over an unproven theory is a cash grab for the attorneys. Corporate ambulance chasers. Nothing more.

Hey if you join in… maybe $12 in the form of an Amazon gift card. How does that sound?

 

[ShadowsPapa]

…none of the plaintiffs listed have reported a fire…

Sorry, but victimless plantiffs suing over an unproven theory is a cash grab for the attorneys. Corporate ambulance chasers. Nothing more.

I may also end up with death wobble and have an accident. Maybe time to sue.

So far these money seekers have nothing solid to run with. Fires - but no proven cause. Investigation not over.
Sue after a cause is pinpointed by someone and then show Jeep sat on it and refused to deal with it. That's when you sue. There's nothing to accuse them of yet - nothing solid and no proof they ignored it when something is actionable.

 

[Maximus Gladius]

Lawyers will get paid.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

From the web -

Eligibility requirements can vary depending on the details of the case and the laws in the jurisdiction where the lawsuit is filed. In general, individuals must be able to show that they have suffered harm or damages as a result of the defendant's conduct in order to participate in a class action lawsuit.

Their commonality must be "I'm afraid my Jeep will burn" -


Predominance

Rule 23(b)(3) requires the court to find that “questions of law or fact common to class members predominate over any questions affecting only individual members.” In other words, the court analyzes whether questions of law or fact common to the members of the class will predominate over any questions affecting only individual members, making class treatment an efficient way to resolve the common questions for all members of the class in a single adjudication.

 

[Rahkmalla]

…none of the plaintiffs listed have reported a fire…

Sorry, but victimless plantiffs suing over an unproven theory is a cash grab for the attorneys. Corporate ambulance chasers. Nothing more.

This one is highly debatable. If i own a vehicle with a track record of catching on fire, shouldn't i expect such concerns to affect my vehicle's value on the secondary market? Were i interested in trading said vehicle due to fire concerns and was offered less money as a result, perhaps even to the point where I can no longer afford to trade said vehicle, have I not been damaged even without seeing my own vehicle go up in flames?

What do you think happened to the street value of Pintos that didn't explode?

There's a reason stuff like this is a matter for a judge and jury. All of us sitting here playing armchair lawyer (myself included) can spin any narrative we want because it's really easy to tell a tale when the evidence is imaginary.

General public opinion still thinks the McDonald's "Hot Coffee" case was lawsuit lottery run amok, yet i know very few people who actually sit and read the facts of the case and maintain that opinion. (FYI: the coffee was so hot it fused her labia together and gave her life threatening injuries. McDonald's knew it was serving coffee over OSHA safe limits and was doing so purposefully because they performed actuarial analysis and determined the marketing value of the free refill policy was more valuable than the injuries they expected to occur to patrons, and also viewed the value of the free refills lost to be greater than their expected future payouts for said injuries. The jurors took one look at the fact that McDonald's concluded it was cheaper to knowingly injure people and said 'We're going to make that not true")

 

[sharpsicle]

This one is highly debatable. If i own a vehicle with a track record of catching on fire, shouldn't i expect such concerns to affect my vehicle's value on the secondary market? Were i interested in trading said vehicle due to fire concerns and was offered less money as a result, perhaps even to the point where I can no longer afford to trade said vehicle, have I not been damaged even without seeing my own vehicle go up in flames?

What do you think happened to the street value of Pintos that didn't explode?

There's a reason stuff like this is a matter for a judge and jury. All of us sitting here playing armchair lawyer (myself included) can spin any narrative we want because it's really easy to tell a tale when the evidence is imaginary.

General public opinion still thinks the McDonald's "Hot Coffee" case was lawsuit lottery run amok, yet i know very few people who actually sit and read the facts of the case and maintain that opinion. (FYI: the coffee was so hot it fused her labia together and gave her life threatening injuries. McDonald's knew it was serving coffee over OSHA safe limits and was doing so purposefully because they performed actuarial analysis and determined the marketing value of the free refill policy was more valuable than the injuries they expected to occur to patrons, and also viewed the value of the free refills lost to be greater than their expected future payouts for said injuries. The jurors took one look at the fact that McDonald's concluded it was cheaper to knowingly injure people and said 'We're going to make that not true")

I'd tend to agree with you if there was actually evidence of a failure. As of now, it's all been pure speculation on the root cause, and a cooperative investigation on if there's even a correlation. So unless this lawyer and these 4 unaffected people have some new evidence that they aren't sharing, there's not much here.

These cases scream of "quick settlement before bad press".

 

[Rahkmalla]

I'd tend to agree with you if there was actually evidence of a failure. As of now, it's all been pure speculation on the root cause, and a cooperative investigation on if there's even a correlation. So unless this lawyer and these 4 unaffected people have some new evidence that they aren't sharing, there's not much here.

These cases scream of "quick settlement before bad press".

You have more faith in Stellantis than I do. They were aware of the manual fire issues LONG before they did anything about them, and then even once announced took almost a year to fix even the very first one. As a 2022 manual owner, i only became eligible for the 19A recall about 3 months ago (18 months after the issue was announced).

My personal experience leads me to believe the origin of this lawsuit is based on what the lawyers believe they'll uncover in discovery. And you don't get discovery without a lawsuit filed.

Could it go nowhere because (as you've said) there's actually no evidence? Sure. But I'd rather see it play out as a suit is supposed to because the process will provide the answers needed.

 

[Viper501]

@Rahkmalla is correct in his analysis. All of our vehicles suffer diminished value if there is a real, or sometimes even perceived, issue with the safety of the truck. This is especially true where such issues go ‘viral’ and get an outsized megaphone. The Pinto is a great example.

Ferrari was found to have factory software that allowed them, really anyone with enough know how or cash, at the dealer level to change the mileage on their cars. They could, without any trail, back out as many miles as they wanted using the software. It only came to light when a dealer fired one of their guys who blew the whistle on it. This ability effectively impacts the second-hand market because you won’t truly know whether or not the mileage is accurate. Ferrari has, to my knowledge, avoided litigation about that because they will black list anyone who pushes back on them. The market is also very small relative to Jeep, so the potential of a viral media scare is also diminished. And then there is the issue of consumer / jury sympathy for folks who buy Ferraris.

I can also see reasons to file suit immediately because there are also potential issues with defenses related to the time frames for the litigation and certain consumer protection statutes.

The truth in any class action litigation is that the lawyers get a big chunk of money that is concentrated into a very small number of law firms. There are not many firms that can afford to engage in litigation with a Stellantis sized entity. They front all of the costs and have to analyze whether they can absorb the long-term investment in the matter. And, despite popular perception, we are all generally better off with such litigation existing since the risk / benefit analysis makes companies evaluate whether the product is safe to put in the stream of commerce.

The McDonalds coffee case is as described by @Rahkmalla as well but even more. The jury in that case heard about all of the prior incidents of the same thing happening to other consumers and that McD’s ignored it because it served their purposes.

 

[rr11]

If this plays out like most class action's in the past, millions to the lawyers $25.00 each to the class members.

 

[Viper501]

You have more faith in Stellantis than I do. They were aware of the manual fire issues LONG before they did anything about them, and then even once announced took almost a year to fix even the very first one. As a 2022 manual owner, i only became eligible for the 19A recall about 3 months ago (18 months after the issue was announced).

My personal experience leads me to believe the origin of this lawsuit is based on what the lawyers believe they'll uncover in discovery. And you don't get discovery without a lawsuit filed.

Could it go nowhere because (as you've said) there's actually no evidence? Sure. But I'd rather see it play out as a suit is supposed to because the process will provide the answers needed.

GM was sued in South Carolina federal courts for the exploding gas tank issues with their pickups. The litigation in that case involved hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of pages of documents, more witnesses than you can count, warehouses (literal) of paper, and all kinds of man hours. It was found that not only did GM play games with the discovery process to hide the ball but so did their attorneys.

At the end of the day GM was shown to have analyzed the costs of making a change versus the risk to consumers and decided the costs outweighed the costs of the possible injuries.

 

[sharpsicle]

You have more faith in Stellantis than I do. They were aware of the manual fire issues LONG before they did anything about them, and then even once announced took almost a year to fix even the very first one. As a 2022 manual owner, i only became eligible for the 19A recall about 3 months ago (18 months after the issue was announced).

My personal experience leads me to believe the origin of this lawsuit is based on what the lawyers believe they'll uncover in discovery. And you don't get discovery without a lawsuit filed.

Could it go nowhere because (as you've said) there's actually no evidence? Sure. But I'd rather see it play out as a suit is supposed to because the process will provide the answers needed.

Fair point about the discovery. But, much like I might have more faith in Stellantis and NHTSA than you do, you might have more faith in the motives of the class-action attorneys than I do. Often they go and find 4 people that are "afraid" of a what-if rumor so they can file a suit and get paid, regardless of legitimacy.

I'd point to the very few cases where negligence was actually found vs. the number of class-actions filed. The ratio is slim. How many class-actions magically disappear via an "undisclosed settlement without admission"? The lawyers settle to get paid and then just drop it.

These things never seem to do anything to mitigate perceived resale values or any of that nonsense. At most, it forces a recall. Often, it's just a service bulletin if owners report/complain about a problem. Usually, though, it nets a lawyer's paycheck and that's it. We'll see what happens.

 

[Viper501]

For those who want an interesting read on the GM gas tank litigation and class actions in general https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/us-4th-circuit/1384985.html

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