SAN DIEGO – A state appellate court has ruled in Ford Motor Co.'s favor after it challenged a $58,800 ruling in a lemon lawsuit, ruling the plaintiff's complaint was untimely presented.
"We conclude the proper application of the rule of that case dictates that multiple tolling periods cannot be 'stacked' here to extend a statute of limitations," wrote Justice William W. Bedsworth of California’s Fourth Appellate District on March 12. “We publish because no other California court has addressed multiple tolling since China Agritech, and we feel publication will facilitate appellate discussion in case we have it wrong.”
Plaintiff Gabriel Montoya reportedly purchased a brand new Ford Excursion in 2003.
In the meantime, two class-action lawsuits were filed. The first failed to decertify but the second proceeded to settlement, according to the ruling.
Before the hearing on the settlement, class members were given the chance to opt-out by April 22, 2013, according to the appellate court decision. Some three days before the deadline, Montoya opted out and filed an original, individual complaint two months later.
“He was able to obtain a judgment against Ford of almost $59,000 for breach of the implied warranty of merchantability,” Bedsworth wrote. “This was roughly an $8,000 return over what he had originally paid for the vehicle 10 years earlier.”
Montoya allegedly waited to sue individually because a proposed settlement would have afforded him only a fraction of the recovery he could obtain alone, according to the opinion.
“...We determine that to toll the statute of limitations during the period of a second class action contravenes the judicial economy and efficiency...,” Bedsworth wrote.
Montoya had argued that without successive class action tolling, which is also known as stacking, a class member would not be able to benefit from a second class action.
Bedsworth was unconvinced.
“Second class action tolling multiplies litigation, rather than consolidating and reducing it,” the opinion states. “We therefore hold the second class action against Ford did not toll the four-year statute and we reverse with directions to enter judgment in favor of defendant Ford.”