At the district court of Braunschweig hardly ever a plaintiff has won against VW. In the process for around 15,000 diesel owners, the legal services provider MyRight has now filed a motion of bias against the judge.
VW plant at the headquarters in Wolfsburg
Wednesday, 07.02.2018
14:17 clock
In the court cases around the Diesel manipulations From Volkswagen there is a new exhibition fight. The legal service MyRight, the 15,000 VW diesel owners have ceded their claims for damages, accuses the competent judge in the most weighty trial of the car company before the Regional Court of Braunschweig, to be biased.
Special explosive received the allegations, since the Brunswick court – which sits in a sense in the atmosphere of Wolfsburg VW headquarters – so far, despite dozens of judgments in the past year alone, none of the plaintiffs in the VW diesel scandal has been right. Braunschweig stands out nationwide. Show that Analyzes of the ADAC and the Stiftung Warentest,
In a request for bias, the US law firm Hausfeld, which was commissioned by MyRight, accused the lawyer of having supplied Volkswagen with arguments for defense against the lawsuit, even after the group had even responded to the allegations. This justifies “distrust of the impartiality of the rejected judge,” Hausfeld argues in a letter to the district court. A spokeswoman for the court upheld the motion but did not comment.
In November, the owners of manipulated diesel on the internet platform myright.de had their Lawsuit against VW filedwhose sum of damage amounts to more than 350 million euros. MyRight demands the repayment of the car purchase price for the victims.
In light of the lawsuit, the judge stated that it could be questioned how effectively the VW owners had ceded their claims to MyRight. She pointed out – as she wrote, “as a precautionary measure” – that the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court had rejected the assignment of claims in another case.
However, this court did so under completely different conditions than they are given in the VW case. In front of the Dusseldorf Higher Regional Court, a legal service provider had let claims of victims in a cement cartel cede. But the company had not been able to bear the costs. This rejected the court as immoral. Behind MyRight, on the other hand, is a financially strong process financier, argues the law firm Hausfeld.
Your own defense is up to VW
The approach of the Brunswick judge brings MyRights lawyers on the palm. “This is a civil case, because the court does not investigate the facts of its own motion The burden of proof lies on the part of the plaintiffs and defendants,” says Hausfeld lawyer Christopher Rother. “VW has not even commented on the lawsuit yet.”
It was the task of the group to build a defense line, not the judge. So far, the company has never doubted that the claims of the diesel owners were not effectively assigned to MyRight.
MyRight is particularly annoyed that the judge also asked the legal service provider for an opinion. Here is probably more VW now in the obligation to explain his views, and not the plaintiff complains the law firm Hausfeld.
“Illegally accepted the role of the defendant”
“Both justify the concern that the judge is biased,” MyRight defended in the request for bias. She had “illegally taken over the role of the defendant”. A lawyer from another firm that represents VW owners against the group and is very skeptical about Hausfeld, MyRight was right in his concerns: “You can not leave that way.”
The judge dismissed the allegations in an internal response delivered to the plaintiffs. She had fulfilled her duty to provide information on material process management as early as possible. As a judge, she must examine the admissibility and conclusiveness of a claim.
The ceding of claims, as used by MyRight, has already become commonplace. Even recently, the Federation of German Consumer Federation (VZBV) has filed a lawsuit against a VW dealer in the diesel scandal and can cede claims of a corporate customer. The court did not complain. “Since there is no legal difference, whether one or more claims are assigned,” criticized Hausfeld lawyer Rother the Braunschweig judge in the light of it.
The MyRight lawyers will comment on the statements of the judge in Braunschweig in the coming days. Then the court has to decide whether to grant the request of bias – in which case another judge would be selected. However, it is questionable whether this decides rather in favor of the VW plaintiff. After all, that has never happened before in Braunschweig.