— Ford says a cracked fuel injector lawsuit that was previously dismissed should be dismissed again because a recall took care of any potential problems.
The Ford class action was not filed until a recall of Bronco Sports and Escapes due to cracked fuel injectors.
Ford recalled 2020-2022 Ford Escapes and 2021-2022 Ford Bronco Sports in March 2022 after receiving reports of engine compartment fires. But engineers were still trying to determine the cause of the fires. Ford first believed the engine compartment fires were caused by engine oil separator housings that could crack and cause oil leaks.
In November 2022, Ford recalled about 522,000 Bronco Sports and Escapes following 20 engine compartment fires in vehicles equipped with 3-cylinder 1.5L engines. Ford also expanded the recall by about 43,000 vehicles in April because a cracked fuel injector could leak fuel and cause an engine compartment fire.
The initial cracked fuel injector recall lawsuit was dismissed as "prudentially moot" because regulators with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration approved the recall repairs and it was the job of the agency to monitor the results of the recall.
After the Ford cracked fuel injector class action was dismissed, NHTSA opened a query to determine if the recall repairs were good enough to prevent engine compartment fires. This caused the plaintiffs to file a "motion for relief of judgment" regarding the previously lawsuit dismissal.
Even though federal safety regulators were still investigating the issue, the judge brought back the dismissed cracked fuel injector class action lawsuit.
Motion to Dismiss the Ford Fuel Injector Lawsuit
Ford argues “speculative fear” does not satisfy the legal requirements necessary to prevent dismissal of the class action. Ford also notes how the court previously found that over the useful life of a Ford vehicle, fuel injectors "have at most a 0.40% chance of cracking” even before the recalls were announced.
In its motion to dismiss, Ford points out how the class action says there were a total of “59 reports of under-hood fires in a vehicle population of 564,430.” This means the plaintiffs admit the risk of an engine fire from any cause is just 0.01%. But the plaintiffs also contend there can be other reasons unrelated to fuel injectors for engine compartment fires.
Regarding the 59 Ford engine compartment fires out of 564,430 vehicles, Ford notes how the plaintiffs say only 17 fires were confirmed as “likely the result of a cracked fuel injector” and point to a separate fire risk from an oil separator.
"So plaintiffs themselves show the risk of an under-hood fire caused by cracked fuel injectors is actually only 0.003%—and that is only if one unreasonably assumes no benefit whatsoever from Ford’s software and drain tube remedies. Plaintiffs assert that “the rates of a defect leading to a fire must be near zero to be tolerable.” — Ford
According to Ford, once the hyperbole is stripped away from the lawsuit, the class action shows the federal recall system working the way it should.
- Discovery of a problem
- A solution to mitigate the safety issue
- Post-solution monitoring and refinement of the process by a "modest" recall expansion
- And regulatory auditing to confirm the recall fixes the problems
According to the plaintiffs, Ford concealed the fuel injector defects from before the vehicles were first built and sold, all while knowing the vehicles could catch fire and destroy property and possibly kill people. But Ford asserts this is absurd.
"Compounding that problem, plaintiffs do not grapple with the absurdity of their notion that a car company knowingly concealed a defect that, if it does manifest, might result in a fire, when that same company would have to spend far more to fix on recall what could have been fixed pre-sale at the factory." — Ford's motion to dismiss
Ford argues the plaintiffs filed the cracked fuel injector class action based on "subjective fears they will experience a fuel-injector caused fire despite Ford’s preventative remedies—a risk, based on their own pleading, almost as rare as being struck by a meteorite."
The Ford cracked fuel injector lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan: Letson, et al., v. Ford Motor Company.
The plaintiffs are represented by Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP, and The Miller Law Firm PC.