Products Liability Law Reporter

A federal district court held that a plaintiff could be entitled to relief from a court’s ruling that a vehicle manufacturer was entitled to dismissal of the plaintiffs’ claims based on prudential mootness.

Anthony Pacheco and others sued Ford Motor Co., alleging that a manufacturing defect in certain Ford vehicles resulted in engine fires. The district court granted the defendant’s motion to dismiss the plaintiffs’ complaint based on prudential mootness, citing a NHTSA recall and the repair Ford promised would remedy the fire risk. The plaintiffs appealed the decision and moved for relief from judgment under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b)(2) and (3). The plaintiffs asserted that Ford knew the recall repairs did not remedy the fire risk and that the company issued a second recall after the court’s dismissal.

Moreover, suit claimed, Ford received reports of engine fires in vehicles that received the recall remedy and other reports of fires in vehicles that received the fix during assembly.

The court found that to succeed on a Rule 60(b)(2) motion, a movant must show that it exercised due diligence in obtaining the information and that the evidence is material and would have produced a different result if presented before the original judgment. The new information the plaintiffs presented provides a new factual basis to dispute that the defect was remedied by the recall, the court said, adding that post-repair fires are material to the court’s determination that the plaintiffs would have received a complete remedy through the recall.

Finding that the plaintiffs’ appeal divested the court of jurisdiction, the court held that it lacked the power to grant the Rule 60(b) motion. Nevertheless, the court said that if the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed that remand was appropriate, it would grant the motion and permit the plaintiffs to amend their complaint.

Citation: Pacheco v. Ford Motor Co., 2024 WL 188369 (E.D. Mich. Jan. 17, 2024).

Plaintiff counsel: Abigail Pershing, Pasadena, Calif.; Dennis A. Lienhardt, Sharon S. Almonrode, and E. Powell Miller, all of Rochester, Minn.; and Thomas E. Loeser and AAJ member Steve W. Berman, both of Seattle.