In the course of the diesel scandal, the Stuttgart district court was overrun with tens of thousands of lawsuits from deceived consumers. In the meantime, the wave of lawsuits has subsided – but a recent BGH ruling could bring new impetus to the matter.
red/dpa/lsw
07/08/2023 – 10:07 am
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After the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) lowered the hurdles for diesel plaintiffs, the Stuttgart district court considers a new wave of lawsuits to be conceivable. A court spokesman said the consumer law firms are making great marketing efforts for this. “A new wave of lawsuits seems quite possible.” However, the development cannot yet be specifically foreseen. It is also conceivable that most of the plaintiffs willing to take action have already sued. The BGH judgment contains important principles and guidelines for the lower courts, he said. However, it cannot be said in general terms whether the procedures are easier to work through as a result.
At the end of June, the BGH made it significantly easier to claim damages for deceived diesel drivers. Consumers whose cars have inadmissible defeat devices installed are therefore generally entitled to compensation. However, it still has to be proven that it is an impermissible defeat device in the first place. In addition, the compensation ranges from 5 to 15 percent of the purchase price. A complete reversal is then no longer an option.
Average processing time of 9 months
In the past, the Stuttgart regional court had been overwhelmed by tens of thousands of diesel lawsuits – and with consequences: Whereas the processing of civil proceedings in 2017 took an average of 6.8 months, in 2022 it was already 9 months. Recently, however, the number of lawsuits has decreased. In 2021, the court still recorded around 10,000 cases, in 2022 there were only around 3,000. In the first half of 2023, only around 500 cases were received. The reasons for this are not known, it said.
A total of around 29,000 cases have been received at the Stuttgart Regional Court since 2018. Around 750 of these have not yet been processed.