— A Chevy Cruze diesel class action lawsuit that has spent nine years in court is headed back to a district court after an appeals court ruled the plaintiffs will have another chance to prove certain claims are not preempted by federal emissions regulations.
The Chevrolet Cruze diesel class action was filed in 2016 after Volkswagen was caught cheating on emissions tests.
Lawyers began filing class action lawsuits against automakers across the country making the same allegations.
This Chevy Cruze class action was no different, as 2014-2015 Chevy Cruze diesel vehicles were allegedly equipped with illegal emissions "defeat devices" that cause the vehicles to emit illegal nitrogen oxide levels.
The owners who sued claimed they were "injured" by buying "clean diesel" cars that weren't so clean and should have been recalled. But after five years in court, the judge could find no evidence to support the allegations against GM.
And although the Cruze owners complained they would lose money for “future attempted repairs,” the judge found after five years none of the plaintiffs had ever attempted to have their Cruze vehicles repaired.
The judge also found that "four long years of discovery have not produced the widespread evidence of deceptive engineering and regulatory fraud that Plaintiffs have alleged in this case."
The class action is still going because one judge can read a law one way while another judge may see things completely different.
In this case most of the claims are still dead, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has brought back the chance of success for the 10 Chevrolet Cruze owners listed as plaintiffs. Those owners assert certain fraud claims are not preempted by federal emissions regulations, specifically the Clean Air Act.
The Sixth Circuit says the case is remanded to the lower district court, but not for new litigation. The appeals court says it remanded the lawsuit "for the limited purpose of determining whether the plaintiffs’ remaining claims" are preempted.
"To the extent any such claims are not preempted, the district court may do the following: (i) decide (upon an appropriate motion) the separate question whether the record in this case—as it now stands after the close of discovery—shows the existence of genuine issues of material fact as to any such unpreempted claim." — Sixth Circuit
The Chevrolet Cruze diesel class action lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court Eastern District Of Michigan: Counts, et al., v. General Motors LLC.
The plaintiffs are represented by Carella, Byrne, Cecchi, Olstein, Brody & Agnello, PC, Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP, and Seeger Weiss LLP.
Read about previous actions in the Chevrolet Cruze diesel lawsuit: