Possible Norcold lawsuit settlement

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an RV or an interest in RVing!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
See posts with no answers
Gary RV_Wizard

Gary RV_Wizard

Site Team
Joined
Feb 2, 2005
Posts
81,719
Location
West Palm Beach, FL
Norcold announced today a tentative settlement of the fridge lawsuit, one that I feel is very disappointing. It is still subject to court approval, but if both sides agree that is usually a formality. The proposed settlement is $33M, of which $8.2M goes to the lawyers and courts. That leaves about $25M for the 569,000 Norcold owners who form the complainant class for the action, or less than $50 each.  Even if a lot of owners never make a claim, that's still peanuts considering the risk. Sounds to me like a major victory for Norcold, who still admits no wrong. The law firm, of course, makes out well too.


http://www.rvbusiness.com/2014/09/thetford-tentatively-settling-2012-norcold-suit/
 
It is not a surprising settlement, and it is always the attorneys who make out the best.
 
I agree, this settlement should not have been agreed to. It was settled rather quickly as well, I wonder why.
 
Many attornies live for the class action suit.. WHY.. because in a class action the court decides how much they get (often millions) and we the victims get what is left over... (Well, in this case it's you the victims cause I have a Dometic but... You get the idea)  I wonder is a similar case on file against Dometic,,, I might like to go out to dinner at The Waffle House some day.
 
I believe that the insurance companies that have paid out large fire claims have probably opted out of the class action - they have real damages to cite and can assuredly win much larger settlements in their individual lawsuits. That weakens the class action, since few class members actually have damages. The lawyers in this sort of suit want the best $$ they can get without protracted court battles, and their $8.2M share isn't too shabby for a several man-years of work that is largely done by law clerks and secretaries.
 
Caller to 911 Operator:  There is a dead lawyer laying out here on the highway.

Operator:  How can you tell it is a lawyer?

Caller:  No skid marks.
 
In the same vein as Bill's post...

Trucker has a habbit of running down lawyers when he sees them walking along the side of the road but today he has picked up a hitchiker, a Preacher who's  car's broke down.

They come upon a lawyer carrying a gas can and the driver starts to swerve (By force of habbit) but then remembers the preacher so he swerves back, but still there is a THUMP.

He says: "I'm sorry Revered, but I think I might have hit that lawyer back there".. The preacher replies:
"No, You missed him,, but I got him with the door".
 
If the judge approves the settlement, everybody who owns one of these three fridge types (N6xx, N8xx, N12xx) will receive a notification of the settlement and have the right to either accept it or "Opt Out". My advice will be to opt out, because if you accept you give up all future claims against Norcold for future damages due to cooling unit overheat failures.  If the settlement offer is a paltry $20 or even $50, that's nothing vs the potential damages. Of course, your RV insurance still covers any actual property loss, if that's all you care about.

I haven't seen a settlement offer yet, but I'm pretty sure I will opt out when it comes. You can also be sure that any insurance company that has paid a fridge fire claim will also opt out and pursue their own settlement with Norcold.
 
I'm wondering if you accept the settlement it precludes your insurance company from going after Norcold.  I don't see how that could be legal.

I was hoping that their settlement would be to replace the cooling unit, but clearly they have better lawyers.  Rats!
 
I wouldn't even attempt to guess if our actions affect our insurers chance of recovery from Norcold.  I don't think so, since they themselves won't be a party to the class (they don't own any fridges!) and would opt out even if they were. My guess is that major insurers will or already have reached their own private settlements with Norcold and are [or will be] getting reimbursed for provable losses

The problem is that your insurer will only pay you for actual damages, up to the limits of your policy. You can't sue them for a gazillion in pain and suffering or lost income if all you have is comprehensive (fire) insurance on the coach. Typically the coverage is on the physical coach, not on you (check your policy carefully, or ask the agent to verify). Some people may have other personal  insurance that applies, however.

Since Norcold is admitting no wrong-doing, they aren't buying any new cooling units or fridges. They are just bribing owners to stop hassling them.  The class-action lawyers are just looking for the maximum return on their legal time investment. They probably figure they could litigate for years more and still may or may not get a much better settlement, so they want to cut and run with a nice fat fee for a modest amount of legal work. Justice isn't really a factor.
 
For some very important information on the Norcold fires and the status of the proposed settlement (e.g. - it was denied by the Judge hearing the case) you might want to read the following article that was just published on Forbes.com this week.

Exploding RV Refrigerators Spark A War Among Plaintiff Lawyers - Forbes.com - Dan Fisher
http://www.forbes.com/sites/danielfisher/2014/11/06/exploding-rv-refrigerators-spark-a-war-among-plaintiff-lawyers/

The facts of the story speak for themselves.
 
8Muddypaws said:
I'm wondering if you accept the settlement it precludes your insurance company from going after Norcold.  I don't see how that could be legal.

I was hoping that their settlement would be to replace the cooling unit, but clearly they have better lawyers.  Rats!
Click to expand...

Your insurance company could only go after Norcold if they paid a claim under your insurance/warranty policy.  In that case, your rights to collect from Norcold would be subrogated to the insurer who paid your claim.  Your insurer would then have the right to go after Norcold for the money they paid you.  It's not likely that they would bother since their cost to collect would probably exceed any money they might receive.  If you collected from Norcold and also received a claims payment from your insurer you would technically owe your insurance company a portion of the payment you received from the class action suit. 

 
Given that an RV fire is nearly always a total loss, the insurer might have 100,000+ reasons to go after Norcold to recover costs. And yes, depending on the specific wording of the settlement, accepting it might well prohibit your insurer from recovering, since the insurer is acting in your behalf to do so. However, it should not prevent you getting collecting on your own insurance.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Members online

Total: 556 (members: 6, guests: 550)

Forum statistics

Threads
131,964
Posts
1,388,308
Members
137,716
Latest member
chewys79
Back
Top Bottom