By Brendan Pierson
(Reuters) – A federal judge has ruled in favor of Volkswagen in lawsuits brought by two U.S. counties against the automaker over its diesel emissions cheating scandal.
US District Judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco ruled Thursday that Salt Lake County, Utah, and Hillsborough County, Florida, cannot prove Volkswagen violated their rules against tampering with vehicle emissions control systems. Districts can still appeal to the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.
Robert Giuffra, an attorney for Volkswagen, said the decision brings the company “close to the end of the US diesel dispute.” The company reached an $85 million settlement in May with Texas, the last remaining state to sue the company, though that deal isn’t final yet.
Attorneys for the two counties did not immediately respond to inquiries or comments.
Volkswagen announced in 2015 that it had cheated emissions tests by installing so-called “defeat devices” and sophisticated software in 11 million vehicles worldwide that allowed them to reduce emissions only during emissions tests.
The company previously agreed to pay more than $20 billion in criminal and civil penalties and settlements to US federal regulators, states, dealers and owners. A total of more than US$30 billion has been paid out worldwide.
The 9th Circuit ruled in 2020 that state and local governments cannot sue over the defeat devices and software originally sold with the vehicles because the federal Clean Air Act leaves that to the US Environmental Protection Agency. However, it allowed them to sue against updates to the software that were later installed during maintenance.
Breyer dismissed the counties’ claims regarding these updates because he said there was no evidence that they worsened emissions.
(Reporting by Brendan Pierson in New York and David Shepardson in Washington, Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Alistair Bell)
