Abgasskandal: Landgericht Darmstadt gibt EA288-Klage statt!

Volkswagen ordered to take back a Skoda Octavia with EA288 engine.

The Darmstadt Regional Court upheld the emissions scandal lawsuit brought by the owner of a Skoda Octavia “Style”. In its ruling, the court completely followed the plaintiff’s arguments (judgment of November 30, 2020, case number 53 O 448/19).
Volkswagen must take back the Skoda Octavia 2.0l purchased in January 2017 against payment of 20,770 euros. The plaintiff has for the emissions scandal The driver bought the affected car new for 24,230 euros and has since driven almost 50,000 km in it. The court followed the plaintiff's argument and assumed a total mileage of 350,000 km for the calculation of the compensation for use.

EA288 – the successor to the “emissions scandal engine” EA189

In its reasoning for the verdict, the court assumes that the engines from the new series were also equipped with illegal software. This was programmed in such a way that the exhaust gas recirculation is controlled in two different operating modes. In normal road traffic, a low level of exhaust gas treatment is active.

As with the “emissions scandal engine” EA189, the control software also leads to EA288 that the legally defined limit is only complied with in the type approval test procedure. The special feature of the current proceedings is that the court rejected the plaintiff's argument regarding the programming of the engine control software in the engine EA288 between the parties as undisputed.

Internal VW documents attest to emissions manipulation

The defendant Volkswagen AG initially simply denied the statement made in the statement of claim and classified it as unsubstantiated. However, in the statement of claim, the plaintiff side made a qualified statement by submitting excerpts from an internal VW document entitled “Decision template: Application guidelines & approval specifications EA288”. This internal document states, among other things, that the target values for the NEDC cycle are up to 1.5 times higher than the EU specifications of 80 mg/km and thus in a range of up to 120 mg/km. In addition, the Detection of the test bench run by the installed software described to exhaust aftertreatment “to be placed only according to distance”.

Taking into account the plaintiff's arguments, which were qualified by the submission of internal documents of the Volkswagen Group, a simple denial was no longer sufficient. Volkswagen would instead be the manufacturer of the engine EA288 to make a so-called substantiated denial. However, this did not happen. Therefore, the plaintiff's statement regarding the programming of the engine control software should be regarded as admitted.

The court has no doubts about the immorality of the conduct

In its legal assessment, the court has no doubts about the immorality of the conduct. It is obvious that Volkswagen AG wanted to gain competitive advantages through illegal means and thereby increase company profits. However, this goal, which is legal per se, was achieved through reprehensible means. As a law firm representing the plaintiff in Darmstadt, we are very pleased about this success!

"A court has finally recognized the potential of the internal document. It's all there - you just have to draw the right conclusions from it. VW's behavior seems to have changed. The transparency announced by the company is also just lip service. Car customers trust that vehicles with an EC type approval can be operated in accordance with the law. Volkswagen continues to abuse this trust and use it for its own benefit. It is not possible for a customer to recognize this deception. I can only advise everyone to seek legal advice from a specialized law firm so as not to end up being the fool."

Partner Dr. Marco Rogert