Monday, April 21, 2008

I Won, and All I Got Was This Lousy Coupon


    This just in: Attorneys in a class-action suit against the former "Big 3" automakers won $1.4 trillion in damages this afternoon. The attorneys successfully argued that their hundreds of thousands of clients' vehicles, "heavy Detroit iron," lost resale value because of a "perceived poor fuel efficiency." Gas hog owners received tokens for service station air pumps; attorneys split $1.35 trillion.
    No, not yet ... but it's only a matter of time. Ford Motor Co. this week settled class-action suits in three states that contended Explorers lost value because of the perception of rollover danger.
    Of course, that's a danger the 800,000 owners might have perceived when test driving the SUVs, especially if they were stepping up from a car to a truck with a higher center of gravity. Many buyers made the move because of the perceived safety of sitting high up in a heavier vehicle. Perceptions are tricky— and now, in this case, expensive.
    News coverage of earlier lawsuits involving Explorer rollover accidents hammered down resale value by about $1,000, according to attorneys. They won the case, they earned a payday— but $25 million in fees and costs?
    Meanwhile, the owners get coupons good for $500 off a new Explorer— you know Ford was begging not to be thrown in that briar patch— or $300 toward other Ford vehicles.
    "All I get is this lousy coupon that I'm not going to use. It's valueless to me," said Stephen Webber, an Explorer owner in Southern California.
    Well, that's his perception. Maybe he's got a class-action suit against plaintiff's attorneys. Or maybe he's got a cause that members of the political class now seeking re-election could take up in Congress.
    Court dockets are clogged and the scales of justice are skewed by the ever-increasing number of such lawsuits that generate millions in legal work for the sake of an outcome that gets buried in the coupon drawer.