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Lawyers who sued Ford for alleged violations of California’s vehicle Lemon Law have now been sued by Ford.
Ford claims it found evidence of lawyers who allegedly attended trials or depositions in opposite ends of the state at the same time, while some lawyers apparently worked more than 24 hours in a day.
According to Ford, one lawyer allegedly worked “an ostensibly heroic but physically impossible 57.5-hour workday in November 2016.”
Several California lawyers and law companies are accused of violations of the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act by allegedly inflating bills. Ford contends it and other automakers have paid for “unworked” and phantom time that totaled at least tens of millions of dollars.
Filed against Knight Law Group, the Altman Law Group and Wirtz Law regarding California Lemon Law cases, Ford argues at least 50% of the $100 million billed by the lawyers over the past 10 years was illegally inflated.
According to the lawsuit, the RICO defendants submitted thousands of fee applications that appeared legitimate but were clearly false and fraudulent “when viewed in context of all other fee applications submitted for work on the same day.”
Ford contends lawyers “concealed their fraudulent scheme by lying and by spreading their fee claims across numerous matters involving different California courts, cases, and car company defendants. In so doing, they hoodwinked all of the judges and lawyers who were privy only to information presented in individual cases.”
How did the alleged “massive and unlawful scheme” occur?
“They allegedly did so by abusing and misusing the fee-shifting aspects of the Song-Beverly Act in California. Based on the investigation and the allegations in the complaint, as to Ford alone these fraudulent and inflated billings total at least $100 million dollars over 5 years.” — Ford
Ford’s lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California: Ford Motor Company v. Knight Law Group LLP, et. al.
Ford is represented by Kasowitz Benson Torres LLP.