COLUMBUS, Ohio (Legal Newsline) – The Ohio Supreme Court has paved the way for punishment against Volkswagen over its emissions scandal that has already caused the company to pay a nearly $3 billion federal penalty.
On June 29, the court ruled the federal Clean Air Act did not preempt state law claims initiated by former state Attorney General Mike DeWine and now pursued by AG Dave Yost. The case was filed after Volkswagen’s actions came to light; it equipped its automobiles with systems that recognized when regulators were testing emissions.
When tested, the autos would reduce emissions to acceptable levels, but in everyday use they would produce them at levels that violated the Clean Air Act. Volkswagen eventually issued recalls to fix malfunctioning systems.
Ohio AGs say 14,000 vehicles were impacted in the state and sued under the state’s anti-tampering statute. Initially, those claims were found to be preempted by a Franklin County judge, but an appeals court and now the state Supreme Court have ruled they can proceed.
“Ohio’s law specifically makes it possible to comply with it and the federal scheme by stating that it is not a violation of (state law) if the conduct in questions is ‘taken for the purpose of repair or replacement of the emission control system or is a necessary and temporary procedure to repair or replace any other item on the motor vehicle and the action results in the system’s compliance with Clean Air Act amendments,” Justice Patrick Fischer wrote.
“Importantly, that means that Ohio’s law does not conflict with the federal vehicle-warranty statute, federal vehicle-recall procedures, or federal useful-life requirements. It also means that Volkswagen’s fears that it will be punished for actions taken in response to EPA guidelines or for modifications approved by the EPA are unfounded.
“The bottom line here is that as long as Volkswagen complies with, rather than circumvents, federal law it will have nothing to worry about in Ohio…”
Volkswagen argued the Clean Air Act and Ohio law were conflicted because the CAA also prohibits emissions tampering.
“(T)he Clean Air Act does not suggest that Congress intended to shield vehicle manufacturers from state-law emissions-control-tampering liability,” Fischer wrote.
“Certainly, if Congress had wished to preclude states from punishing companies or persons for emissions-control tampering, it could have said so.”
Justice Michael Donnelly was the lone dissenter on the court. He says the Clean Air Act is so comprehensive that it “occupies the entire field of the regulated activity.”
“In my view, the attorney general’s decision to seek an additional judgment that could total more than $1 trillion involves nothing more than the attorney general’s disagreement with the penalty that the federal government carefully crafted,” Donnelly wrote.
“In this immediate sense, I believe that there is a clear conflict between the federal and state objectives.”