Driver thinks small - and wins big

The owner of a Honda hybrid has won a small claims court case against the car maker which could trigger a flood of similar actions across the world.

Los Angeles Superior Court Commissioner Douglas Carnahan awarded Heather Peters 9,867 dollars, saying Honda misled her about the car's expected fuel economy.

"At a bare minimum Honda was aware ... that by the time Peters bought her car there were problems with its living up to its advertised mileage," he said in the judgment.

Ms Peters, from California, opted out of a class-action lawsuit to try to claim a higher payment for the failure of her Civic hybrid to deliver the 50 miles per gallon that was promised when she bought it.

After being told of the decision, former lawyer Ms Peters said: "Wow! Fantastic.

"I am absolutely thrilled. Sometimes big justice comes in small packages. This is a victory for Honda Civic owners everywhere."

She is now renewing her legal licence after a 10-year lapse so she can represent other Honda owners who have the same problems.

Honda spokesman Chris Martin said today the company disagreed with the judgment and planned to appeal.

Ms Peters had hoped to inspire a flood of lawsuits by the other 200,000 owners of the Civic hybrid model sold in 2006. She said if all 200,000 owners of the cars sued and won in small claims cost, it could Honda two billion dollars.

She launched a website, DontSettleWithHonda.org, and said she was contacted by hundreds of other car owners from all over the world seeking guidance in how to file small claims suits if they opted out of a class-action case already filed.

The upside of small claims court is that there are no legal fees and cases are decided quickly. Individual payments are far greater than in class-action cases.

Honda's proposed class-action settlement would give aggrieved owners 100 to 200 dollars each and a 1,000-dollar credit towards the purchase of a new car. Legal fees in the class action case would give trial lawyers 8.5 million dollars, Peters said.

Legal experts had said it was unlikely that all owners would take the small claims route because of the time and energy involved in pursuing them, but it was a unique approach that could have an impact.

Ms Peters claimed her car never came close to the promised 50mpg and achieved no more than 30mpg when the battery began to deteriorate. She still owns the car and wanted to be compensated for money lost on petrol, as well as punitive damages, amounting to 10,000 dollars.

In his 26-page ruling, Mr Carnahan included a long list of misleading representations by Honda that he said Ms Peters had correctly identified. Among them were that the car would use "amazingly little fuel", "provides plenty of horsepower while still sipping fuel" and that it would "save plenty of money on fuel with up to 50mpg during city driving".

"Actual performance of plaintiff's vehicle did not live up to these standards," he said. He noted that when she began receiving much less than the advertised mileage, "she knew she had a problem".

The commissioner noted that Honda had argued the way a car is driven might affect its furl economy. He said that should have been explained in advertising and elsewhere.

A Honda technical expert who spoke at an earlier hearing said the company was required by US law to post the sticker with the Environmental Protection Agency's estimate of the highest mileage the car could achieve.

But Mr Carnahan said in his ruling that "this does not seem to be the case".

"Honda's own testing should be the guideline for how it advertises its vehicles' mileages, not the generalised work ... done by the EPA," he said. "Can a Honda hybrid driven in careful and tested ways achieve 50mpg? No doubt. Did it happen with Peters' car? No."

The ruling harshly criticised Honda on several points, including misrepresentations about a software update that was represented as a cure for the mileage problems. Ms Peters said it just made the situation worse and she could no longer get more than 30mpg in the car, which she still owns.

Mr Carnahan found that Honda did commit fraud, but he could not find intentional fraud and thus did not award punitive damages.

Most of the damages Ms Peters was awarded were for extra money spent on fuel, both in the past and future, the cost of the car battery, and the decrease in the car's value because of its problems.

A judge in San Diego County is due to rule in March on whether to approve Honda's class-action settlement. Members of that action have until February 11 to accept or decline the deal.

Small claims courts generally handle private disputes that do not involve large amounts of money. In many US states, that means small debts, quarrels between tenants and landlords and contract disagreements. Lawyers are not usually there; in California, litigants are not allowed to have lawyers argue their case.

The limit for small claims damages in California is 10,000 dollars. In other states it ranges from 2,500 to 15,000 dollars.