BENTON – Chrysler and Harman International, which defeated a class action that Belleville city attorney Brian Flynn filed, seek to recover more than $200,000 from his lawyers.
Chrysler submitted a bill for $102,838 to U.S. District Judge Staci Yandle on April 16, and Harman submitted a bill for $102,257.96.
Charges for 44 deposition transcripts accounted for most of the expenses.
Chrysler counsel Stephen D’Aunoy of Thompson Coburn wrote that Chrysler sustained more than $340,000 in actual costs not including attorney fees.
“The cost of this litigation was exorbitant overall, and much of this cost would have been avoided if plaintiffs had not engaged in scorched earth discovery tactics throughout it,” D’Aunoy wrote.
He wrote that a court may order payment of just costs where a suit failed for want of jurisdiction.
Yandle dismissed the suit on that basis in March, finding Flynn and three other plaintiffs lacked standing because they suffered no injury.
Plaintiffs filed suit in 2015, after Wired magazine reported that experts seized control of a Chrysler vehicle under controlled conditions.
The experts hacked the vehicle through a communication device Harman made.
Chrysler recalled vehicles for adjustment, but Flynn claimed the risk remained and the court should order another recall.
He sought to recover the difference between the amount he paid for his Jeep and the amount he would have paid if he had known the risk.
He sought to recover the difference between the amount he would receive for selling his Jeep and the amount he would receive in the absence of the risk.
Two plaintiffs from Missouri and one from Michigan also asserted claims.
Chrysler and Harman moved to dismiss for lack of standing, arguing that no one but the magazine’s experts hacked a Chrysler vehicle.
District Judge Michael Reagan didn’t order another recall, but he granted standing to Flynn and the others in 2016.
In 2018, he certified them to represent classes for their states.
More than a million Chrysler buyers belonged to the classes, and Flynn’s experts estimated damages in the billions.
Reagan retired last year, and Yandle presided over the close of discovery.
Chrylser and Harman moved to decertify the classes, enter summary judgment, or dismiss for lack of standing.
Yandle granted the third option, finding the U.S. Constitution limits federal court jurisdiction to actual cases and controversies.
“No hacker has remotely accessed the system, no hacker has seized control of a vehicle’s operations, and no consumer has ever been injured,” Yandle wrote.
She found no demonstrable effect on the market for the vehicles.
D’Aunoy and six other Thompson Coburn lawyers represent Chrysler.
Six lawyers with Foley and Lardner represent Harman.
Six lawyers with Armstrong Teasdale represent Flynn, along with Lloyd M. Cueto and Christopher Cueto of Belleville and Michael Gras of St. Louis.