TBC Corporation and Subsideries TBC Corporation is currently selling known defective tires made in China Summerville, sc South Carolina
Colorado, Florida Tire Defect Plaintiffs Get Class Certification Kurt NilandSeptember 4, 2018
Drivers in Colorado and Florida suing TBC Corp. and Dynamic Tire Corp. over allegedly defective tires received state class certification for their complaints.
Plaintiffs from Arizona, California, Colorado, and Florida filed a complaint in June 2017, alleging they all bought trailers fitted with TBC Corp. and Dynamic Tire Corp. tires with defects that caused their treads to separate from their casings.
The plaintiffs allege that the tire companies knew the tires were prone to tread separation but failed to disclose the defect to consumers. The drivers filed a motion for class certification on April 27, 2018.
According to Law 360, U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee in California found consumer protection laws in Colorado and Florida allow the class certification, while equivalent consumer protection laws in Arizona and California are not as conducive to addressing plaintiffs’ claims as a class, given the individual circumstances of each plaintiffs’ purchase.
Because of the material differences in consumer protection laws in Arizona and California, which require plaintiffs to demonstrate that they were duped by salespeople when purchasing a product, Judge Gee denied class-action certification to plaintiffs from those states.
Under consumer protection laws in Colorado and Florida, failure to be warned about a potential problem may be sufficient to support a claim, whereas consumer protection laws in Arizona and California require plaintiffs to prove an expressed misrepresentation about the product.
In most of the cases, the drivers say they bought their vehicles without knowing what brand of tires they came with, let alone spoke to a tire salesman about their quality and dependability.
The drivers accuse the tire companies of unjust enrichment, breach of express and implied warranty, fraud, negligent failure to recall or retrofit, and violation of California, Arizona, Colorado and Florida’s consumer protection laws.