- Ford has filed a lawsuit against attorneys who battled against the automaker in Lemon Law cases.
- It claims the lawyers fraudulently overbilled over the course of several years extracting $100 million.
- Ford says one lawyer billed 57 hours for a day, another billed for two appearances on the same day.
California’s Lemon Law exists to protect innocent consumers from getting ripped off, but now Ford claims it’s the one being taken advantage of. In a new lawsuit, the automaker is accusing multiple attorneys of defrauding the company out of $100 million by fabricating and inflating invoices.
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Related: California Court Strips Lemon Law Protections For Used Cars Under Warranty
Ford filed a suit against nine defendants in a Los Angeles federal court this week, accusing them of carrying out a large-scale fraud over several years while representing buyers attempting to reject faulty cars under the Lemon Law.
Ford Claims Systemic Fraud Hidden in Legal Fees
The automaker alleges that the law firms worked together to carry out the fraud in violation of the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, taking advantage of Ford’s legal obligation to pay for legal work and court fees racked up by unhappy customers.
The “magical mystery tour of fictitious billings” includes alleged examples of fabricated work and time entries that range from difficult to believe to completely impossible. One lawyer, Amy Morse, a partner at Knight Law Group, is claimed by Ford to have “billed more than 20 hours per day on at least 66 occasions, 34 of which exceeded 24 hours, including an ostensibly heroic but physically impossible 57.5-hour workday in November 2016.”
Impossible Hours, Inflated Invoices
Ford also alleges that another lawyer billed 29 hours to cover preparation for and travel to two different trials that took place on the same day in the US. Those trials were held over 380 miles (612 km) away from each other in Los Angeles and San Francisco.
The automaker, which believes half of the legal fee applications it received were bogus, and that other automakers may also have been affected, is seeking at least $300 million in damages. But the lawyers vigorously refute the accusations.
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“This action by Ford is nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to silence firms who would dare hold them responsible and seek justice for consumers,” Knight Law said in a statement emailed to The Daily Journal.
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