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Speaker 1: Chrysler became the first US carmaker to be sued over

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Speaker 1: fraudulent engine claims. Dodge truck owners alled some engines were

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Speaker 1: rigged to hide emissions that were as much as fourteen

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Speaker 1: times higher than that allowed by law. Similar claims were

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Speaker 1: made against Folkswagon, which admitted that it installed devices designed

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Speaker 1: to full emission testing in eleven million cars worldwide. Chrysler

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Speaker 1: and its diesel technology partner, Cummins denied the accusations and

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Speaker 1: say they'll fight the lawsuit. Joining me are the attorney

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Speaker 1: for the plaintiffs, Steve Berman of Hagen's Berman, Sobele and Shapiro,

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Speaker 1: And Professor Eric Gordon of the University of Michigan Law School. Steve,

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Speaker 1: what are the major allegations of the lawsuit? The major

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Speaker 1: allegation is that these cars, diesel cars are subject certain

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Speaker 1: MISSUS standards. We alleged that the engines violate the Missus

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Speaker 1: standards by many magnitudes. And Eric, what's the major question

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Speaker 1: are the fact finder in this case? Well, if I

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Speaker 1: understand the complaint correctly, the claim is that the companies

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Speaker 1: made representations that are deceptive and false. The fact that

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Speaker 1: the UH the trucks now um at seventy thousand miles

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Speaker 1: or whatever mileage at some time later, are in fact

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Speaker 1: not in compliance. Is not the same as saying that

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Speaker 1: when the trucks were sold, the claims about their cleanliness

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Speaker 1: were false and deceptive. So the fact finder is going

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Speaker 1: to want to go beyond just well, yeah, they're spewing

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Speaker 1: out this, uh, this pollution to did the companies at

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Speaker 1: the time they sold these trucks and at the time

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Speaker 1: they made representations to e P A Uh, did they

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Speaker 1: make claims that they knew were false? How will that?

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Speaker 1: That seems like it's a very difficult thing to prove

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Speaker 1: unless there are some kind of internal documentation, an emails,

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Speaker 1: And how would that be proven? Well, you can prove it,

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Speaker 1: you know, you hope that you can fish and find

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Speaker 1: the smoking gun um, which was found in Volkswagen's case. Um,

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Speaker 1: so who knows whether it exists or not, or you

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Speaker 1: find evidence which would convince a juror that Well, look,

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Speaker 1: they obviously knew that they had to know. We we

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Speaker 1: don't have an email, but how could they not have known,

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Speaker 1: so that that kind of evidence also works. How is

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Speaker 1: this similar to the v W case? Is it exactly

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Speaker 1: the same? Well, it doesn't strike me as being exactly

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Speaker 1: the same because in v W what was discovered was

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Speaker 1: software which was deliberately engineered to produce test results that

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Speaker 1: were different than the real world. That's different than having

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Speaker 1: trucks that in fact pollute more than they which now

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Speaker 1: pollute more than they were claimed to pollute. And in

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Speaker 1: in this complaint there's a lot about the VW emissions problem.

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Speaker 1: Is there a link that they're trying to establish? Well,

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Speaker 1: I you know, you know this is uh, this is

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Speaker 1: fairly common in complaints where you would like to link

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Speaker 1: the person you claim to be a wrong doer with

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Speaker 1: somebody else who is widely believed to be a wrong doer.

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Speaker 1: So even though you know these these are big trucks,

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Speaker 1: these are not volkswagens, they're different companies. Um. In the end,

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Speaker 1: they both involve air pollution, which is a you know

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Speaker 1: harm to everybody. Uh. So you know, if you can

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Speaker 1: link your your defendants to people that pretty widely believed

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Speaker 1: to be bad guys, that's a pretty that's a pretty

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Speaker 1: good strategy. The link here would seem to be you know,

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Speaker 1: damage damage to the environment, air pollution, which is you know,

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Speaker 1: something that I think gervors will take very seriously, Steve,

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Speaker 1: what kind of proof do you have that this was

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Speaker 1: knowingly done by these companies? Well, we tested these vehicles, um,

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Speaker 1: and this is a pattern now that I've seen. I

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Speaker 1: have a case against Volkswagen, obviously everyone knows about that.

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Speaker 1: We have a case against Mercedes. And I began wondering,

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Speaker 1: why is it that the Germans can't comply but the

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Speaker 1: Americans can. So we went out and tested these cars

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Speaker 1: and there's no way. First of all, something the professor said,

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Speaker 1: I disagree with them. That is, they have to meet

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Speaker 1: amission standards for a hundred twenty thousand miles, So it's

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Speaker 1: not good enough that they passed at the first few thousand.

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Speaker 1: They have to pass throughout. And the vehicles we tested

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Speaker 1: they have, you know, some mileage on them, but they're

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Speaker 1: they're not passing UM. So we think that the way

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Speaker 1: this thing operates, both Commings and Dodge had to have

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Speaker 1: known that. What was happening here is that the Knox

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Speaker 1: trap that takes the the dirty particles fills up so

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Speaker 1: frequently that it has to engage in a regeneration. So

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Speaker 1: the car regenerates about the time it operates, and when

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Speaker 1: it regenerates, it puts out a massive amount of knocks

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Speaker 1: ten times to limit. There's no way that these cars

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Speaker 1: could have gone through the testing process from the get

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Speaker 1: go without both companies and Dodge being aware that this

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Speaker 1: is how they operated. Eric, if this does go to

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Speaker 1: a jury and doesn't settle is had to have known enough? Well, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean a lot of cases are found on had

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Speaker 1: to have known, but but it has to be very

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Speaker 1: strong evidence. Jurors aren't good with science or engineering evidence. Um.

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Speaker 1: The fact and you know, and the fact that there's

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Speaker 1: an ep A violation is different than the fraud claims

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Speaker 1: that the really dangerous claims here to the companies of

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Speaker 1: the fraud claims that that's that's a little bit different,

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Speaker 1: and you know, walking them through and saying well, look

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Speaker 1: here's how the engineering works and here's what we've found.

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Speaker 1: So they had to know it. You know that that's

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Speaker 1: a real that's a real toss up. Um. But but

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Speaker 1: the fact is, uh, you know, the smoking guns are

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Speaker 1: are are fairly rare. A lot of cases are one,

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Speaker 1: and they had to know. But they had to know.

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Speaker 1: I mean they really had to know. Um. And after

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Speaker 1: the fact looking back and saying, well, knowing what we

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Speaker 1: now know today they had to know. That's that's tough.

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Speaker 1: It's doable, but it's not easy. Steve, are you hoping

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Speaker 1: to find a smoking gun as you go through discovery? Sure? Everyone,

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Speaker 1: that's our one. And of course you know I can't

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Speaker 1: get too specific. Um, but in the Volkswagen case, Um,

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Speaker 1: we found uh smoking hot guns. So we we think

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Speaker 1: that there's going to be a email record and text

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Speaker 1: messaging record that will help prove our case once we

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Speaker 1: get into discovery. And also tell me about Chrysler and

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Speaker 1: Commins suing each other. Well, they recalled different model year

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Speaker 1: of this truck because it's violating emission standards and they're

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Speaker 1: both blaming it on each other. So there's a little

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Speaker 1: smoke there that's going to be pretty interesting for us.

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Speaker 1: It's different model years. But I'm I'm not uh convinced

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Speaker 1: that that this is not related. Eric. Are there more

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Speaker 1: of these cases to come? Is this just the tip

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Speaker 1: of the iceberg? Well? You know, I mean I think

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Speaker 1: attorneys who are on the alert to the you know,

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Speaker 1: the potential of these cases are going to test every

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Speaker 1: diesel vehicle ever made. And that's probably a good thing

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Speaker 1: because on an overall level, the idea that we have

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Speaker 1: clean diesels has really been called into question that we

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Speaker 1: have clean diesels or do we have phony clean diesels.

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Speaker 1: And once you start wondering about that, the logical thing,

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Speaker 1: you know, not just because it's a good way to

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Speaker 1: make a fee, but because you really do want to

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Speaker 1: clean up the air, is to test everything that's diesel

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Speaker 1: to see are there any clean diesels or are they

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Speaker 1: all kind of bad