Posted on 06/11/2011 7:27:44 AM PDT by EBH
Ford Motor Co. must pay nearly $2 billion in damages to thousands of dealerships in a 2002 class-action lawsuit that said the automaker violated dealer agreements, an Ohio judge ruled Friday.
Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Peter Corrigan in Cleveland issued the ruling based on a Feb. 11 jury determination that the company overcharged dealers for commercial trucks over an 11-year period.
The $2 billion award covers more than 3,000 dealerships and about 474,000 trucks. It includes a judgment of about $781 million and about $1.2 billion in interest.
"In awarding the dealers the amount of money they overpaid for trucks, the jury verdict places ... the dealers in the financial position contemplated by the terms of the contract," said James Lowe, a Cleveland attorney for Westgate Ford Truck Sales Inc., a dealership in Youngstown that represents the class.
Ford's annual report, filed on Feb. 28, says the class action included all dealers who purchased a 600?series or higher truck from Ford from 1987 to 1997. It says the lawsuit accused the automaker of failing to reveal that price concessions were given to some dealers.
Ford said in a Friday statement that the company will appeal.
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
Because the Obama Regime has picked winners and losers. They are out to get Ford for opposing their nationalized GM and Chrysler manufacturers? They have to steal what we will not give them willingly, and any excuse that hurts Ford is okay. Obama and his far left regime disgust me -what happened to the rule of law?
Because their dealer agreement says so. A contract is a contract.
Check and Balances? Nah! Obama Makes His Own Laws!
My Fellow American,
Politically, the “gloves are off.” Barack Hussein Obama will now GO AROUND Members of Congress and the American people via EXECUTIVE ORDERS and “SECRETARIAL ORDERS”… because that is now the only way he will be able to push his radical agenda forward. Mr. Obama will EVADE Congress simply because he no longer CONTROLS the House of Representatives.
He will use whatever means are available to him to seize the control to “legislate” away from Congress. In short, he literally wants to RULE you!
Whatever means at his disposal through Executive Orders and Secretarial Orders (who ever heard of a Secretarial Order?) to implement what Congress won’t entertain legislatively. Executive Orders are pretty much veto-proof unless Congress overrules the White House edicts. And, since it takes a majority in both Houses of Congress to rescind an Executive or Secretarial Order, the odds of that happening in the Harry Reid Senate are slim to none.
http://formerobamasupporters.com/54017/check-and-balances-nah-obama-makes-his-own-laws/
“...the company overcharged dealers for commercial trucks over an 11-year period.”
Can we sue Detroit for overcharging us for crap vehicles since the mid-1970s ?
OBAMA DID NOT NEED TO TAKE OVER ALL THE CAR MANUFACTURERS TO TAKE OVER THE AUTO INDUSTRY
ONLY ONE
THEN USE THE FORCE OF THE GOVERNMENT TO BANKRUPT THE OTHERS
ANYONE WHO BUYS GM IS A TRAITOR
The Federal Gov’t has been overcharging the self-sufficient and selfactivated for decades.
What if one dealer purchases more units than another? What if the Ford dealer is in a tougher market and needs a little help to get the sale from GM or FORD?
HOw much of this money will ultimately go to the dealers? BAh! Only to the attorneys.
I want to know more about the judge and the attorneys representing the dealers...
I can’t imagine a Caterpillar Dealership suing Caterpillar.
Something stinks here. No loyalties?
Must be more to the story...
Taking money out of one dealer's pocket to help another dealer is a no-no. If you help one dealer, you must help them all.
I suppose the contract could contain a clause that reads, "we reserve the right to give other dealers preferential treatment over you," but who would sign it?
What rule of law? Methinks you jest.
ummm... if the dealers were overcharged, weren't the customers overcharged too???
That’s baloney and sounds both French and libtard at its root. Why shouldn’t Ford treat its best dealers better than it’s lousy ones ? It’s business, not Kindergarten.
Taking money out of one dealers pocket ? Pelosian....
Excuse me, Ford has a right to negotiate any way it pleases with each individual dealership.
If this argument is carried to its logical conclusion it would mean that any retail customer who paid more than someone else for the identical vehicle should be able to sue. Pure lunacy.
If allowed to stand this ruling will be the demise of wholesaling and volume discounts—or discounts for any reason.
Question: no matter what the Ford Co. charged the dealers for a truck, the dealer passed that price plus their profit on to the consumer. Where did the dealer get screwed??? Looks to me like the consumer got screwed.
You are excused for not understanding distribution, dealership, and franchise law. I’m not in the position to practise it either. You should be able to find someone fairly decent at it for $500/hour.
By your standards and mine, I am a patriot. I will never buy another GM vehicle. That company is dead to me because of the massive corruption in the nationalization and stiffing bondholders to reward the UAW and other big campaign donors. I will not buy a new GM and reward the criminal enterprise that GM has become, nor will I buy a used GM and support their resale value, which can convince others that a new GM is worth buying. GM can rot in its socialism, but I am boycotting them forever.
i agree with you 100%
I used to be a chevy guy while my brother was a ford gy- it made for some intersting conpetitions
But now I have to say- I LOVE FORD TRUCKS~!
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