— A Fiat 500X engine fire lawsuit has been tossed by the judge after he ruled the law requires an expert opinion which the lawsuit doesn't have, though the plaintiffs argue the opposite.
The Fiat 500X engine fire lawsuit was filed by Michelle Baker and Cody Berta who purchased a used 2016 Fiat 500X crossover SUV in 2018 when the vehicle had about 48,000 miles on it.
On July 11, 2020, the Fiat SUV caught fire in the driveway at about 5:50 a.m and the fire spread to house. Berta says he had “only been out of the vehicle for about 15 or 20 minutes before the fire.” The fire department put out the fire but the Fiat 500X was destroyed.
The plaintiffs contacted Fiat Chrysler which inspected the SUV, but due to the fire damage FCA found, “the information at hand would not permit us to associate the fire with a manufacturing or assembly error.”
The lawsuit mentions how after the fire, Chrysler mailed the plaintiffs “Customer Satisfaction Notice W80” about how the SUV could suffer from a “low oil condition” that could cause the SUV to stall unless it was repaired. The repairs would be performed for free.
The plaintiffs disposed of the Fiat 500X four months after the fire, then sued Chrysler alleging that some sort of engine defect caused the 2016 Fiat 500X engine to catch fire.
The plaintiffs filed the engine fire lawsuit alleging three counts: a “design defect,” “manufacturing defect” and “breach of warranty.”
The plaintiffs seek damages for "medical expenses, pain and suffering, mental anguish, permanent injuries, disfigurement, lost wages, and extensive property damage to Plaintiffs’ house and personal vehicle—as well as punitive damages."
Judge Corey Landon Maze says the plaintiffs cannot prove any of their claims without proving what caused the fire. Without proof of the cause, they cannot prove the fire resulted from a design defect (Count 1), a manufacturing defect (Count 2), nor can they prove FCA breached some part of a warranty (Count 3).
According to FCA, the lawsuit is doomed because the plaintiffs offer no expert opinion about what caused the fire. The judge agrees that Alabama law requires expert testimony to prove such a vehicle defect.
The plaintiffs assert the fire chief is the expert of the case, and he allegedly reported the fire, “began in the engine of Defendants’ Fiat 500X,” specifically “the engine compartment.”
FCA responded that the plaintiffs never disclosed the fire chief as an expert and even if they had, the chief clearly said he could not determine what caused the fire because the Fiat 500X was destroyed by the fire.
In the official incident report, the fire chief said the cause of the vehicle fire, “was undetermined [due] to the extensive fire damage.”
According to the judge, the plaintiffs disclosed no experts by the deadline and no expert depositions were taken.
And the judge says the fire chief could not legally offer an expert opinion because the law requires expert testimony to be “based on sufficient facts or data.”
"But Chief Macoy says in the incident report that 'what cause[d] the car to catch on fire was undetermined [due] to the extensive fire damage.' In other words, Plaintiffs’ proposed expert admits that he lacks 'sufficient facts or data,' to opine on the cause of the fire. So Plaintiffs cannot offer Chief Macoy’s narrative as an expert opinion on causation." — Judge Corey Maze
However, the plaintiffs claim the case should still move forward based on pictures of the 2016 Fiat 500X after the fire. (See above)
"The photographs taken of the automobile at issue in this action clearly display for any lay witness and/or jury to reasonably conclude that the engine of the automobile at issue in this action was the source of the fire at issue, because the engine wholly and completely burned to nothing but ashes, while the remainder of the automobile at issue in this action remained intact, albeit unmistakably and significantly fire damaged."
The judge didn't buy that argument.
"But lay pictures are not expert testimony, which is required given the nature of the alleged defect in a technical product. Plaintiffs’ failure to offer expert testimony that explains why their SUV caught fire dooms their case." — Judge Maze
The Fiat 500X engine fire lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama (Eastern Division): Michelle Baker, et al., v. Fiat Chrysler Automobiles US LLC.
