LOS ANGELES - U.S. District Judge Andre Birotte, Jr. found in favor of Ford Motor Co. in a single DPS6 powershitf transmission case on Wednesday, with a ruling that could have broad application in remaining cases of the multi-district litigation.
Birotte granted Ford's motion for judgment on pleadings on claims brought under the Song-Beverly Consumer Warranty Act - the state's lemon law - finding plaintiff's allegations of intentional and negligent misrepresentation and fraudulent omissions failed.
Plaintiff Lorenzo Altamirano-Torres, represented by the Knight Law Group of Los Angeles and Kiesel Law of Beverly Hills, in part argued that a window sticker on his 2014 Ford Focus stating the vehicle was equipped with an automatic transmission was misleading because the vehicle "was not actually equipped with an automatic transmission."
Torres claimed that Ford misrepresented the meaning of "automatic" because "typical" or "traditional" automatic transmissions use torque converters and wet clutches - but DPS6 transmissions do not.
Birotte adopted Ford's contention that no reasonable person would interpret the term "automatic" in the way the plaintiff claims he did, reversing an earlier finding where he rejected that argument made by Ford.
Birotte also agreed with Ford on the dictionary definition of the word "automatic."
"Merriam-Webster defines the adjective 'automatic' as something done 'involuntarily . . . unconsciously . . . as if by machine' or as 'having a self-acting or self-regulating mechanism,'" he wrote. ”Merriam-Webster also uses 'an automatic transmission' as its main example for the definition 'having a self-acting or selfregulating mechanism.'
"Thus, when the adjective 'automatic' modifies the noun 'transmission,' it describes how the transmission operates from the driver’s point of view: it denotes that the transmission is self-acting or self-regulating, meaning that the transmission shifts gears on its own and the driver does not have to. Plaintiff claims that the adjective automatic indicates something about the internal componentry of the transmission (torque converters, wet clutches) as opposed to how it operates from the driver’s point of view (that its gears shift without the driver having to shift them).
"But Plaintiff’s claimed understanding is not supported by the ordinary dictionary definitions of the word, and Plaintiff provides no argument whatsoever to suggest that his claimed understanding concerning the internal componentry of a transmission is one than an ordinary reasonable consumer would share. That an ordinary reasonable consumer would have such expectations—that an automatic transmission has a wet clutch, not a dry clutch, for example—is simply implausible and the dictionary definitions reinforce this."
Birotte also rejected plaintiff's claim for fraudulent omission. He held that Torres failed to plead an omission with particularity, writing that he already ruled in a prior order that allegations of performance problems - alleged "bucking, slipping, jerking" - were inadequate.
"As stated therein, this merely describes performance problems with the vehicle and does not amount to identifying the defect that Ford failed allegedly to disclose." he wrote. "It is therefore insufficient."
For more than five years, Ford and other auto makers have been fighting a vast number of cases in California courts.
The litigation consolidated in Birotte's court once exceeded 1,000 cases. In June, Ford settled approximately 760 MDL cases with the law firm Consumer Legal Remedies (CLR) of Beverly Hills.
Last month, Birotte reversed a $23,155 jury verdict in a trial he presided over last December. He granted Ford's move for judgment as a matter of law in the case of plaintiffs Yvonne and Salvador Quintero, finding that evidence their lawyers submitted was insufficient "to establish that Ford failed to repair or replace their vehicle after a reasonable number of repair opportunities."