TRENTON, N.J. (Legal Newsline) – Almost 20 years in, class action lawyers have learned they picked the wrong method for calculating damages in a lawsuit over Kia Sephias made from 1997-2000.
The New Jersey Supreme Court decided June 25 that aggregate proofs are not appropriate in the case, which alleges Kia Sephias had defective brake systems.
A jury had found each class member sustained $750 in damages for repair expenses, producing a verdict worth more than $800,000, but a new trial on damages was ordered. A special master studied class members’ individual claims and recommended around $46,000 to the entire class for the cost of repairs.
“Although aggregate proof of damages can be appropriate in some settings, the Court considers such proof improper in this case,” Justice Anne Patterson wrote.
“The trial court erred when it initially allowed Plaintiff to prove class members’ out-of-pocket costs for brake repairs based on an estimate untethered to the experience of Plaintiff’s class.”
But ordering the new trial on individualized proof of damages was the right thing to do, the court ruled in contradiction to an appeals court.
The special master looked through 1,201 claims, deeming a repair to be compensable if it was performed within the first three years or if the car had been driven less than 36,000 miles.
“This was, in short, a fair and exemplary claims process,” Patterson wrote.
The outcome was much less for the class than it had scored with the original jury verdict. The plaintiffs expert multiplied 34,000 “abnormal” repairs not paid for by Kia by $250 – a total of $850,000.