Monday, July 30, 2012

That's An Expensive Car, Even For Mercedes Benz

From NBC News:Madison.com: Mercedes Benz has paid the $618,000 the Wisconsin Supreme Court says it owed in a lemon law case after the victorious attorney sought garnishment of earnings from six Mercedes Benz dealers in the state.
Attorney Vince Megna says the payment from Mercedes Benz was hand-delivered on Monday. That was 11 days after Megna filed the garnishment action in court because the car company had not yet paid the court-ordered judgment in May.
The ruling grew out of a 2005 case involving a Waukesha businessman who bought a defective $56,000 Mercedes-Benz, but the company argued it wasn't liable because the owner didn't provide information needed to grant a refund.
The Supreme Court disagreed and ordered the payment.
Megna says additional unpaid attorneys' fees will likely eclipse $235,000.
The reason for the lawsuit: The Wisconsin Supreme Court told Mercedes-Benz Thursday morning to pay almost a half-million-dollars to a Waukesha man who bought a defective car. Businessman Marco Marquez won a $482,000 judgment under Wisconsin’s “Lemon Law.”
The case has been shuffled among various courts since 2005. That was after Marquez bought a Mercedes E-320 from a Milwaukee dealership for $56,000. He said the car would never start – and after several efforts to fix it, Marquez demanded a refund for the faulty vehicle. And the company failed to provide a refund within the 30 days allowed under the Lemon Law.
Mercedes-Benz claimed that Marquez did not provide the company with enough information about the loan on his vehicle within the 30 day time limit. But the Supreme Court rejected that argument, and the justices said Mercedes also had to pay Marquez’s legal fees.
http://wtaq.com/news/articles/2012/may/24/wi-supreme-court-awards-man-482k-for-merecedes-benz-lemon
As usual, the lawyers get most of the money but I would think that Mercedes Benz would have thrown in the towel much earlier, as they will now have to pay out for about 15 new cars.

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