Ford Sues Another L.A. Law Firm Over Alleged Excessive Fees

Early last year, Ford sued a number of California law firms, alleging that they were leveraging lemon laws illegally for their own financial gain. That lawsuit was tossed out not once, but twice, but Ford is doubling down yet again, suing another law firm in Los Angeles over the matter.

According to the LA Times, Ford Motor Company is suing Quill & Arrow in Los Angeles for allegedly inflating their fees by as much as 7,000 percent. Quill & Arrow is a personal injury firm and represents drivers suing in regard to alleged “lemons,” and Ford states that it has paid said law firm more than $100,000 since 2021, which the automaker states was the result of “utter fabrications.”

Ford also alleges that the law firm has an “army” of non-lawyers on hand who help file thousands of lemon lawsuits. These low-paid employees allegedly attempted to pass off that work as being performed by legitimate Californian attorneys, who billed as much as $950 hourly. Those non-lawyers operated out of Mexico and the Philippines, and were receiving $13 an hour.

Quill & Arrow responded to the lawsuit, stating that Ford’s actions are “nothing more than an attempt to silence firms who would dare to hold them responsible and seek justice for consumers,” and that it “grossly mischaracterizes the facts and the claim that Quill & Arrow created fabricated attorney billing records is absurd.”

As a reminder, California lemon law entitle owners to refunds or outright replacement of a broken vehicle if it is unable to be repaired by the manufacturer. If the owner is not satisfied, then they are able to sue the automaker. If the owner does win, attorneys can collect their fees directly from the manufacturer rather than out of the client’s winnings. However, Ford argues that that structure makes the system easy to abuse.

“California’s Lemon Laws are in need of reform and the courts need to exercise more oversight, given the fraud we continue to expose,” said Doug Lampe, counsel at Ford, in a statement. The law is “being blatantly abused by the lemon law plaintiffs lawyers, the bar is not policing its own and the courts need to monitor fee awards with far more skepticism and scrutiny.”…Read more by