Honda Civic’s lawsuit ended after plaintiffs alleged that the air conditioning condensers were defective.
March 4, 2021 – A class action lawsuit against Honda Civic regarding air conditioning condensers has been dismissed as 2015-2019 Honda Civic owners claim the cars suffered from cracked air conditioning hoses and condensers.
The class action lawsuit alleges refrigerant leaks and prevents the air conditioners from working properly.
According to the plaintiffs who sued, the Honda Civic air conditioning systems are not powerful enough to handle the internal pressures and external forces that the systems are subjected to while driving.
Honda Civic’s class action lawsuit alleges that the automaker knew of alleged air conditioning problems prior to selling the vehicles. But Honda reportedly kept the alleged air conditioning failures from all 2015-2019 Civic owners.
When the Civic air conditioners fail within the warranty period, plaintiffs claim “Honda often shies away from warranty obligations” by charging diagnostic fees before repairs can be made.
Dealers also allegedly deny air conditioning guarantees by saying the systems have “signs of a litter impact”.
The Honda class action lawsuit relates to an August 2019 extended warranty for A / C capacitors for Civics 2016-2018.
“American Honda is extending the A / C condenser warranty to 10 years from the original date of purchase with unlimited miles. This warranty only applies to vehicles with a factory defective A / C condenser. The A / C condenser was As a result, tiny holes can be created in the condenser tube walls through which the refrigerant can escape. ” – – Honda Service Bulletin 19-091
In addition to extended warranty coverage, the program also provides reimbursement of repair costs for citizens who paid to have the air conditioning condensers replaced due to the defect discovered by Honda. Nothing in the program includes a leaking air conditioning condenser due to “foreign body damage”.
And although Honda has set up an extended warranty program, plaintiffs claim the extended warranty program is useless because it “only covers the replacement of AC system capacitors that have failed due to an alleged manufacturing defect that Honda claims has pitted capacitors due to corrosion develop”.
According to the Honda Civic class action lawsuit, the extended warranty program does not cover all of the work required to repair the air conditioning systems.
Honda Civic class action dismissed
In dismissing the lawsuit, Judge Josephine L. Staton found problems with allegations and claims related to Honda’s warranties.
Plaintiffs admit that at the time of filing the first amended complaint, “[they] He has[d] Honda has not yet received any communications about the [warranty extension] the existence of the program or its parameters. “
Still, plaintiffs claim that Honda’s extended warranty program “does not provide the full relief to which the class is entitled”.
“With that in mind, plaintiffs somehow claim they have enough information to conclude that Honda’s extended warranty is ineffective because ‘the AC system failure can appear years after repairs by an authorized dealer.” [and therefore] Many class members can experience additional AC system failures more than ten years after purchase, ie outside the warranty extension period. ” – – Judge Stanton
The judge says a court must accept allegations at face value, but only if the allegations are plausible. According to the judge, “none of the alleged experiences of the named plaintiffs shows, even remotely, that the alleged defect” can manifest itself “years after repairs have been carried out by authorized dealers”. “
And while plaintiffs claim, “The extended warranty program does not compensate class members for the depreciation of their vehicles or for the amount they overpayed [their] Vehicles, “the judge ruled that plaintiffs do not take into account the value of the unknown warranty program, which is not known.
According to Judge Staton, plaintiffs are asking them “to use hypotheses” when it comes to plaintiffs’ claims regarding Honda air conditioning warranty program.
Less than a month after Honda announced the extended warranty, plaintiffs filed their first amended complaint alleging a warranty program they failed to take advantage of.
“In other words, plaintiffs are questioning Honda’s response to an alleged deficiency, but they rushed to file their amended complaint before Honda’s response could prevail, and asking the court to consider hypotheses. ” – – Judge Stanton
The judge also noted that air conditioning systems were working properly for all but two plaintiffs after Honda made repairs at the time of filing the second amended class action lawsuit.
And only one plaintiff has requested reimbursement of expenses under Honda’s extended warranty program.
While plaintiffs claim Honda’s AC repairs “only temporarily restored functionality,” the judge found that only three of the plaintiffs had more than one air conditioning failure, and two plaintiffs had repeated failures more closely over a short period of time Follow on.
“The court thus finds that plausors have made an implausible claim that Honda’s AC system will ‘restore functionality only temporarily’ across the board, leaving it ‘a’ credible threat ‘with a probabilistic one Damage will occur ‘. “
According to the judge, this leaves none of the plaintiffs entitled to claim injunctive relief.
And according to the judge, the plaintiffs cannot change their complaint this time.
“Here the Court concludes that the facts need development, not that the plaintiffs have additional facts that they could have relied on in order to give rise to their claims but did not do so According to this Protocol, the Tribunal therefore concludes that it would be unwise to allow an amendment to be made. – – Judge Stanton
The case is Elkins et al. v. American Honda Motor Co., Inc. et al., Filed in the US District Court for the Central District of California.
Comments are closed.