Nguyen v. Nissan North America, Inc.

Background

Huu Nguyen sued Nissan North America, Inc., alleging that vehicles using the FS6R31A manual transmission had a defective concentric slave cylinder in the clutch assembly. He alleged that the defect could cause the clutch to lose hydraulic pressure, making it difficult or impossible to shift gears or operate the clutch pedal. The proposed vehicle classes covered California purchasers or lessees of new Nissan vehicles equipped with the transmission, including specified Nissan and Infiniti models from model years 2007 through 2015. Nguyen also proposed a subclass for consumers covered by California’s Consumers Legal Remedies Act.

The three remaining claims were one claim under the Consumers Legal Remedies Act and implied-warranty claims under the Song-Beverly Consumer Warranty Act and the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act. Earlier in the case, the court dismissed Nguyen’s claims under California’s Unfair Competition Law, unjust enrichment claim, and request for injunctive relief under the Consumers Legal Remedies Act. The court had previously denied class certification, but the Ninth Circuit reversed that decision on the damages-model issue and sent the case back for further consideration. The present order addressed the renewed class-certification motion.

Statute of limitations

Nissan argued that the remaining claims were untimely. The court explained that the implied-warranty claims were subject to a four-year limitations period that generally began when the vehicle was delivered. It rejected Nguyen’s argument that an express warranty created a “future performance” exception for his separate implied-warranty claims. The court therefore held that the Song-Beverly and Magnuson-Moss implied-warranty claims were untimely on their face.

The court also held that Nguyen’s Consumers Legal Remedies Act claim was untimely on its face because the applicable period was three years from the alleged unlawful act, which the court treated as the vehicle’s purchase date. Nguyen had mentioned delayed discovery, an exception that can postpone the limitations period in some circumstances, but the court found that he had not pleaded the required facts showing when and how he discovered the claim or why he could not have discovered it earlier. The court also found that he abandoned the argument by failing to adequately address it in his reply brief.

The court expressly stated that it was not deciding the merits of Nguyen’s underlying claims. It decided only that Nguyen had not identified an exception that made his facially untimely claims timely for purposes of the class-certification analysis.

Typicality and class certification

Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(a)(3), typicality requires the representative’s claims to be reasonably similar to those of absent class members. The court held that Nguyen’s limitations problem was a unique defense that could become a major focus of the litigation. Some proposed class members—particularly people who purchased or leased later-model vehicles—might not face the same limitations defense. Because Nguyen was the only named representative, there was no other representative for those members.

The court therefore found that Nguyen failed to satisfy Rule 23(a)(3)’s typicality requirement for both the proposed class and the Consumers Legal Remedies Act subclass. Because typicality was lacking, the court did not address the other class-certification requirements.

Disposition

Judge Lucy Koh DENIED Nguyen’s motion for class certification. The court also DENIED as moot the parties’ Daubert motions to exclude expert evidence because those motions concerned class-damages issues that the court did not need to consider. The order did not state that the underlying case or claims were dismissed.