The carnival season is cancelled. Nevertheless, when you watch this report you feel like you are in such a season or in a satirical programme.

The core message of the report in the Plusminus program of 11.11.2020 on the lawsuits within the framework of the emissions scandal was that there is a veritable litigation industry. This constantly files new lawsuits against car manufacturers and thus paralyzes the German courts.
Courts now have to convert storage rooms to store files, judges are overworked and have to fight their way through the same cases again and again.

But this is only one side of the coin.

The PlusMinus article on the lawsuits in the context of the emissions scandal of 11.11.2020

Why are these lawsuits being filed in the first place?

What the article fails to address is the question of “why”: Why are these lawsuits being filed in the first place?

The answer is very simple – unfortunately it is entirely up to the car manufacturer.
Because no car manufacturer, be it Volkswagen, Audi or Mercedes, has so far shown any awareness of wrongdoing in the investigation of the emissions scandal. Even after the clear ruling of the Federal Court of Justice in May 2020, claims for damages from defrauded customers of car manufacturers were not recognized.

If that were the case, the lawsuits against Audi mentioned in the article and the associated conditions at the district court in Ingolstadt would not be necessary. Audi However, if AG makes no attempt to recognise legitimate and confirmed claims for damages from its disgruntled customers, the company must be forced to do so by the courts.

It should be noted that these are claims that have already been recognized thousands of times for intentional, immoral damage. The regulation for this is Section 826 of the German Civil Code. This regulation is a very sharp sword, but with high requirements. This regulation is essentially the civil law processing of a criminal offense.

Although the VW Group and its subsidiaries such as Audi AG have been informed that the claim for damages is valid under certain conditions, the injured party must file a lawsuit.

The bottom line – no lawsuit, no compensation!

So what would be the situation for injured consumers if there were no specialized law firms to assist them in asserting their claims? The authors of the article did not address this question at all.

If the claim is upheld by the regional court and the claim for damages is thus confirmed, the company will appeal instead of admitting defeat.

Financially, this is a real advantage for the company, as very few of those affected can leave their vehicle unused. They are therefore forced to keep driving it. The compensation for use that the owner has to pay increases with every kilometer. The compensation that the manufacturer has to pay decreases. An attitude that is hard to beat in terms of arrogance from the supposedly powerful.

The digitalization of the justice system was simply overlooked.

Another problem within the justice system has only been examined one-sidedly and that is of home-grown origin. The urgently needed digitization of the justice system has simply been overlooked in recent years. The so-called beA - the special lawyers' mailbox, which allows encrypted and secure electronic correspondence within the justice system - i.e. between lawyers and courts - has existed for a good three years. However, every lawsuit, every written submission, every attachment to the written submission is printed out and presented to the judges in paper form. Modern working methods are different.

E-mail correspondence between lawyers and the court only occurs in a few exceptional cases. A modern form of communication - the paperless office, for example - fails because the judiciary is forced to print out everything submitted electronically on paper. It is clear that one then has to resort to storage rooms. And it is also not a big deal that this ties up resources that are urgently needed elsewhere. It goes without saying that the judiciary is also chronically understaffed. Files have been piling up for years and proceedings take forever. This is nothing new.

So if stubborn car manufacturers force consumers to file lawsuits to make legitimate claims for damages, now would be a good time to push forward the digitization of the justice system, if only to enable modern communication and efficient work.

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Der Beitrag ARD-Beitrag – PlusMinus vom 11.11.2020 zu den Abgasskandal-Klagen erschien zuerst auf R&U.