SAN JOSE, Calif.--June 18, 2004--On Monday, a Santa Clara County Superior Court judge awarded $75,000 in attorney's fees to Subaru of America, Inc. under California's Consumer Legal Remedies Act. In awarding the attorney's fees the court found the evidence was overwhelming the plaintiff had attempted to defraud Subaru in bringing the action, and plaintiff's attorneys had an obligation to and should have determined that either when they filed the suit or during investigation and discovery.

The case involving an allegation of a defective transmission in a 2002 Subaru Impreza WRX was brought under the Song-Beverly Consumer Warranty Act and the CLRA. The court further found that because of their conduct in litigating the case, the plaintiff's attorneys had caused Subaru of America, Inc. to incur unnecessary attorney's fees of at least double the amount defense of the breach of warranty case should have cost. The court's award of the $75,000 represented the amount over what the court estimated were reasonable attorney's fees for defending the case.

Mendez v. Subaru of America, Inc. (Case No. 1-02-CV808407).

Plaintiff was represented by the Kinsey Consumer Law Center, Soquel, California;

Subaru of America, Inc was represented by Barbara J. Frischholz, Bowman and Brooke LLP, San Jose California.

SOURCE: www.theautochannel.com.

 

whats the detail? what did he claim was wrong with hsi tranny? more details please!

 

man thats sad

 

while the outcome of this case might have been justified, it also sets precedence for other subaru owners. now the fight against SOA might be a little harder. outside of our personal issues with SOA, a court victory woud've at least given us some indicator of the court's sentiments. it's too bad that this case never got to that; we will have to wait until a legitimate case gets ruled on....

 

Well, I don't know the details, but it sounds like there was EVIDENCE of abuse, not merely a failed transmission.

As far as the WRX transmission goes, people keep clowning the WRX tranny, but what about the majority of owners with no issues... who will NEVER have an issue?

My tranny is fine, but I'd bet I could make it fail with abusive launches.

 

the fact that the majority of WRX owners have no transmission issues can not be used to disprove that there ARE wrx transmission issues for a small segment of owners. by this, i mean owners who did not abuse their transmissions.

while most of us have no problems, that doesn't rule out the possibility of factory defects; if we blindly hold to the supposition that transmission failures are caused by abuse, i feel that we have done an injustice to our fellow board members who are experiencing issues without flagrantly abusing their transmission or the SOA warranty.

my interest in this case is the outcome of the archetypal "private party vs. big conglomerate". i love my WRX but i think that the passion we have for our cars as well as our admiration of subaru products have clouded our judgement in accepting the remote chance that subaru might be at fault to some degree. again, i don't know if they are...but a court ruling would be an indicator of that, in which case we could not get from this trial b/c of the circumstantial technicalities that prevented further scrutiny.

 

what was wrong with the tranny was people who dont know how to use the wrx tranny and abuse it, breaking it then saying it was subaru's fault. lot of cases of people breaking it then calling it a glass tranny when in fact its the driver who launches it like an 8 year old's toy.

 

my dad's 02 wrx had to have the 1st and 3rd gears replaced, and he did not abuse it. its his daily driver, and he babied it. subaru did that on warranty no problem.

 

ouch.

the point is not if the tranny was abused or not.
subaru offered a replacement tranny.
he wanted more ($$ money $$ on top of the free brand new tranny) and sued them.

gotta pay the price for being greedy, i guess