Sheffield Village, Ohio (Lorain County) 05/13/10.
Attorney Dave Tannehill of Krohn & Moss, Ltd. won his second consecutive trial in a warranty case involving a defective leased car against Chrysler Financials. Dave Tannehill prevailed over Chrysler Financials’ top trial attorneys in the Lorain County Court of Common Pleas (trial court) and convinced the jury to order to pay $6,000.00 in damages on a leased vehicle, a 2007 Chrysler 300C vehicle for breach of warranty.
Chrysler Financials was ordered by the jury to pay Nicholas and Danielle Henry damages for a leased 2007 Chrysler 300C with a recalcitrant transmission issue. The case was heard by Judge Zaleski of the Lorain County Court of Common Pleas (trial court).
Nicholas and Danielle Henry of Sheffield Village, Ohio (Lorain County) leased a 2007 Chrysler 300C car for thirty nine months from Klaben Chrysler Jeep Dodge, Inc. in Kent, Ohio. The car came with a 3 year/36,000 miles express Warranty. The lease included an over the mileage condition for $.20/mile, in excess of 34,125 miles.
Considering the advantages of leasing a car with express warranty over buying one, Nicholas and Danielle Henry felt they landed a good deal. “It was a great relief when I signed the lease papers for the 2007 Chrysler 300C”, the consumer told Attorney Dave Tannehill of Krohn & Moss, Ltd., “Within three weeks it dawned onto me that I was not going to reap any of the benefits of a leased car”.
Nicholas Henry had signed for a defective car.
At around 1,653 miles on the meter, Nicholas started feeling the surge of a brake pulsation and a clunk in the suspension of his car. The pulsation was more pronounced whenever the vehicle slowed to a halt. These issues may not be serious but they were not fixed when Nicholas reported them to the lessor on four different visits.
Worse was to come yet. Meanwhile, another concern surfaced. The car’s engine would shudder and stall. Henry took the vehicle in, to get the problem fixed on four different occasions but the problem was never duplicated by anyone. On one visit, the dealer updated the Power-train Control Module as recommended by a Technical Service Bulletin, but this did not help. He testified in the trial court, “The RPM’s would jump at idle. The Power-train would intermittently shudder and even occasionally stall when slowing to a stop”. This however was not related to the shudder from the brake/suspension problem. Nicholas Henry recalled, “The vehicle stalled once while I was driving through an intersection at around 20 mph. The vehicle lost power steering and power brakes”. He shuddered too, “I was lucky, I was able to pull over to the side of the road without an accident”.
The stalling condition was never duplicated by anyone. Even the expert delegated by the plaintiff’s attorney had no answer to the issue. “I believe the stalling condition is related to two other complaints – a fluid noise in the dash on start-up and a musty smell from the air conditioning”, the expert testified to the utter consternation of the defendant. “The fluid noise, the HVAC smell and low levels of the coolant found on a couple of occasions point to an air bubble in the coolant system which is causing the shuddering and stalling”, the expert inferred.
Seven out of eight jurors accepted this theory and arrived at a decision on a breach of warranty. Chrysler Financials was ordered by the jury to pay Nicholas and Danielle Henry $6,000.00 in damages for the breach of Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act
Attorney Dave Tannehill of Krohn & Moss, Ltd. made the warranty act very pivotal in this case and brought it to a close in favor of his clients.
The Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act protects consumers if they lease defective cars.