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Civil Lawsuits Over VW Diesels to Be Heard in California
A federal judge in San Francisco has been appointed to hear some 500 civil lawsuits claiming Volkswagen AG’s use of illegal software to cheat emission tests reduced the value of its customers’ vehicles.
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A federal judge in San Francisco has been appointed to hear some 500 civil lawsuits claiming Volkswagen AG’s use of illegal software to cheat emission tests reduced the value of its customers’ vehicles.
The U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation chose the court of U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer because the largest proportion of lawsuits originated in California. Both the U.S. Dept. of Justice and VW had requested the cases be consolidated in Detroit. More than two dozen other states also bid for the case.
Many of the lawsuits seek class-action status on behalf of about 480,000 customers in the U.S. who own vehicles VW admits were rigged to pass emission tests but then emit significantly more pollution on the road.
One of Judge Breyer’s first tasks will be to combine the complaints under the leadership of one or more plaintiffs’ attorneys. Breyer, the brother of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, has handled nine previous multidistrict litigations, according to The Wall Street Journal.
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