Ninth Circuit Reverses Denial of Class Cert

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals today rejected an argument by Jaguar Land Rover North America that automobile defect cases are categorically inappropriate for class certification.    Although it seems, based on the court's opinion, that Jaguar probably made a more extreme argument than it needed to, it is not an argument that is entirely off base.  Motor vehicles are operated under a wide variety of conditions and are often subjected to extreme heat or cold, smooth roads or extremely rough roads, and other forms of abuse.  It is common sense that how each vehicle is operated will be relevant to whether the vehicle malfunctioned as a result of abuse or as the result of a design defect.

The court rejected this argument, explaining that whether the plaintiffs may recover for a design defect does not depend on such individualized evidence of vehicle abuse since the design defect, if it exists, is present without regard to such conditions.  This is where the court makes a fundamental mistake.  Whether the plaintiffs may recover does not depend on the existence of some abstract defect, but on whether some malfunction occured or resulted in a dangerous condition.  Thus, a steering component may be defective in the sense that it does not conform to the company's intended design, but if the "defect" does not actually have adverse consequences then it cannot form a basis for recovery.  Indeed, all components have some rate of failure, and vehicle manufacturers know about those failure rates.  But merely because some components fail does not mean that all components will fail, and if a component never fails it is not subject to replacement under warranty.

The fundamental question in vehicle design defect cases such as this is not whether some abstract defect exists; rather, the fundamental question is what effect the alleged defect had on the operation of the vehicle.  In order to determine the effect of the alleged defect, the court must examine all of the relevant individualized evidence put forth by both sides.  Anything less rigs the outcome in the plaintiffs' favor.