The Ford Rollover Litigation: The Scoop On the Coupons

[WSJ_law_blog]

It’s been a while since we heard tale of a controversial consumer class-action lawsuit, and, from our vantage point, that’s not necessarily a good thing. Nothing stirs up the tort-reformers like a good class-action settlement in which plaintiffs lawyers get money and class-members get coupons.

The AP has a story out Monday taking a sort of retrospective snapshot on the Ford Explorer rollover class-action litigation. As part of a settlement reached last year, the nearly 1 million class members covered by the lawsuit each received the opportunity to claim a coupon worth either $300 or $500 toward the purchase of a new Ford vehicle. As of June 2009, according to the piece, only 75 people had used the coupons, at a cost to Ford of $37,500. The plaintiffs’ lawyers, meanwhile, took home $25 million in fees and expenses.

Let us take a quick step back here. This rollover litigation wasn’t filed by people who were physically injured in accidents due to the Explorer’s alleged propensity to rollover, but people who claimed the resale values of their Explorers were hurt by news of the rollover problems and high-profile accidents.

Last year, Sacramento County Superior Court Judge David De Alba authorized the settlement of a class action that lawyers argued could be worth as much as $500 million to people who owned Ford Explorers during the 1990s. As part of the settlement, Ford customers could receive a $500 discount coupon toward the purchase of a new SUV or a $300 coupon to buy another Ford vehicle.

But a report filed with the court in June showed just 75 coupons had been redeemed.

“This coupon is valueless to me,” said Stephen Webber, a Glendale, Calif., lawyer who owns a 1998 Explorer, to the AP. “It did nothing to improve the safety of my vehicle, and I have no intentions of buying a new one.”

The lawyers from the five firms who represented Webber and the million other SUV owners argue that they did the best they could, adding that in 2007 when the case settled, there was a chance Ford would file for bankruptcy, which would have left the litigation largely moot.

A statement from Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann, & Bernstein on behalf of the plaintiffs’ firms, noted that, in addition to winning coupons for class members, they also forced Ford to stop touting the Explorer’s safety features and make a $950,000 donation to nonprofit auto-safety groups.

That said, they were still unhappy with the low redemption rate on the coupons. “Class counsel were surprised and, of course, disappointed by the low redemption rate which undoubtedly was affected by the near-collapse of the economy just as the period to redeem vouchers began,” the lawyers said.

Ford spokeswoman Kristen Kinley told the AP: “We are pleased to have finally settled this case with the plaintiffs and to finally put this behind us,” Kinley said. “We are also pleased to hear that some people took advantage of the vouchers to purchase a new Ford Explorer.”

I still dont follow all of this and I have 3 notices so far, can world law assist me in getting my funds?