Ayanna Weathersby v. FCA US, LLC

Opinion

AYANNA WEATHERSBY, Case No. 24-cv-08779-RS Plaintiff, v. ORDER DENYING PLAINTIFF’S FCA US, LLC, Defendant.

Ayanna Weathersby sued FCA US, LLC in California state court, asserting four causes of action under the Song-Beverly Consumer Warranty Act, Cal. Civ. Code § 1790, et seq. See Dkt. 1 (Notice), Ex. 1 (Complaint). She alleged that defects in her 2019 Dodge Challenger rendered the vehicle substantially worthless and that FCA did not comply with its obligations under the parties’ warranty agreement. See Complaint, ¶¶ 12–15. FCA timely removed the case to federal court based on diversity jurisdiction. See Notice, ¶ 16. Weathersby moves to remand the case to state court. Pursuant to Civil Local Rule 7-1(b), the motion is suitable for disposition without oral argument, and the hearing set for December 4, 2025, is vacated. Because the parties are completely diverse and amount in controversy exceeds the jurisdictional threshold, the motion is denied. In 2019, Weathersby and FCA entered a warranty contract regarding a 2019 Dodge Challenger. See Complaint, ¶ 6. The contract included a basic warranty covering “the cost of all is defective in material, workmanship or factory preparation.” Complaint Ex. A, at 5. It also covered some damage to specific components of the vehicle, such as the powertrain. See id., at 8. Weathersby alleged that certain defects including, but not limited to, engine defects, transmission defects, and electrical defects manifested during the contract’s coverage period. See Complaint, ¶ 11. She further alleged that FCA failed to repair the vehicle pursuant to the terms of the warranty. See id., ¶ 35. That triggered an obligation to replace the vehicle or make restitution to Weathersby. See Cal. Civ. Code § 1793.2(d). When FCA failed to comply with that obligation, Weathersby sued in California state court. See Cal. Civ. Code § 1794 (providing a cause of action to buyers harmed by violations of the Song-Beverly Act). FCA filed a timely notice of removal in federal court, invoking diversity jurisdiction. See Notice, ¶ 16. FCA asserted that the parties were completely diverse and that the amount in controversy exceeds $75,000. See id., ¶¶ 17–32. FCA began its calculation of the amount in controversy by estimating Weathersby’s “actual damages.” To establish a floor, FCA pointed to Weathersby’s discovery response admitting the cost of the vehicle exceeded $25,000. See id., ¶ 24. To establish a ceiling, it provided a declaration stating that the manufacturer’s suggested retail price (MSRP) of the vehicle was $32,880. See id., ¶ 31. Next, FCA added double the actual damages ($50,000 on the low end, $65,760 on the high end) because the Song-Beverly Act permits a civil penalty of twice the actual damages if the plaintiff establishes that the defendant’s failure to comply with its obligations under the warranty was willful. See Cal. Civ. Code § 1794(c); Notice, ¶ 31. Finally, FCA noted that attorney’s fees are at stake because they are statutorily recoverable, and it submitted several declarations stating that fee awards in like cases regularly exceed $50,000. Almost ten months later, Weathersby filed a motion to remand the action to state court. A defendant may remove a civil action from state to federal court if the district court would have had original jurisdiction over the action. See 28 U.S.C. § 1441(a). Where, as here, the defendant removes an action to federal court based on diversity of citizenship, the parties must be completely diverse and the amount in controversy must exceed $75,000. See 28 U.S.C. § 1332(a). There is no dispute here that the parties are completely diverse; the amount in controversy is the only contested requirement. “Generally, the amount in controversy is determined from the face of the pleadings.” Crum v. Circus Circus Enters., 231 F.3d 1129, 1131 (9th Cir. 2000). “Where it is not facially evident from the Complaint that more than $75,000 is in controversy, the removing party must prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the amount in controversy meets the jurisdictional threshold.” Matheson v. Progressive Specialty Ins. Co., 319 F.3d 1089, 1090 (9th Cir. 2003). “Where doubt regarding the right to removal exists, a case should be remanded to state court.” Matheson, 319 F.3d at 1090. A. Face of the Complaint The starting point in determining the amount in controversy is the face of the pleadings. Weathersby’s state court complaint alleged that she “suffered damages in a sum to be proven at trial in an amount that is not less than $35,001.” Complaint, at 3 (emphasis added). FCA contends that this represents the minimum amount of actual damages that Weathersby has placed in controversy. After applying the two times civil penalty and baking in even a modest quantum of attorney’s fees, the total amount in controversy is, in FCA’s view, well over $75,000. FCA’s construction of the complaint is unpersuasive. The allegation that Weathersby is entitled to at least $35,001 is patently intended to meet the jurisdictional threshold for an unlimited civil action in California state court. See Cal. Civ. Proc. Code § 85(a) (setting the threshold). California law permits Weathersby to calculate the amount in controversy using all sources of recovery, including civil penalties, save attorney’s fees. See id. (defining the “amount in controversy” as “the amount of the demand[] or the recovery sought . . . exclusive of attorneys’ fees, interest, and cost.”). There is, therefore, no reason to think that the amount-in-controversy allegation in the state court complaint excluded the value of the civil penalties available under the Song-Beverly Act. Hernandez v. FCA US, LLC, 2025 WL 504366, at *2 (C.D. Cal. Feb. 13, 2025) (“Given that the obvious purpose of the complaint’s statement of damages is to meet the amount- in-controversy requirement for an unlimited state case, Plaintiff’s claim of damages ‘not less than $35,001’ is not a clear statement of actual damages.”). To be sure, district courts in California have often adopted FCA’s position. See, e.g., Marx v. FCA US LLC, 2025 WL 2446551, at *3 (N.D. Cal. Aug. 25, 2025) (“[T]he complaint expressly states that the $35,001.00 refers to the minimum amount of ‘damages’ sought, and ‘damages’ are a different type of recovery than civil penalties and attorneys’ fees.”). Valdez v. FCA US LLC, 2025 WL 732241, at *2 (“Plaintiff’s separation of damages from civil penalties and attorney’s fees in the Prayer for Relief demonstrates the Complaint’s allegation of $35,001.00 in damages is separate from and in addition to civil penalties and attorney’s fees.”). Those cases are unpersuasive for two reasons. First, they fail to explain why a state court plaintiff would exclude statutorily available civil penalties from the amount-in-controversy calculation. If state law permits the plaintiff to include those penalties in the estimate, it will always work to her advantage to do so. That makes it much more likely that the amount-in-controversy estimate includes the available civil penalties. Second, those cases read the term “damages” in the complaint as exclusive of civil penalties because they conceive of damages and civil penalties as qualitatively different forms of relief. See Valdez, 2025 WL 732241, at *2. However, under the Song-Beverly Act, civil penalties are available whenever the plaintiff “establishes that the failure to comply was willful.” Cal. Civ. Code § 1794(c). In that way, California law’s provision of civil penalties is akin to a statutory allowance for punitive damages, which are—as the name suggests—a variety of “damages.” Both are meant to punish especially egregious conduct by the defendant, and both permit the plaintiff to recover beyond the amount by which she was injured. It is thus perfectly plausible that Weathersby’s use of the term “damages” includes available civil penalties. B. Evidence of the Amount in Controversy Though the amount in controversy is not evident from the face of the complaint, FCA has established by a preponderance of the evidence that it exceeds $75,000. The amount in controversy has three components: actual damages, civil penalties (equal to two times actual damages), and attorney’s fees.1 As noted, FCA estimated actual damages as between $25,000 and $32,880, the minimum purchase price to which Weathersby admitted and the MSRP of the vehicle, respectively. Weathersby argues that either figure is an improper estimate of actual damages because neither accounts for the decline in value attributable to Weathersby’s use of the vehicle prior to the discovery of the defects—the so-called “mileage offset.” On this point, too, district courts in California are divided. Many consider the mileage offset to be “both relevant and important to the calculation of amount in controversy.” Bourland v. Ford Motor Co., 2020 WL 5797915, at *4 (N.D. Cal. Sept. 29, 2020); see Cox v. Kia Motors Am., Inc., No. 20-CV-02380-BLF, 2020 WL 5814518, at *3 (N.D. Cal. Sept. 30, 2020) (“This statutory offset, referred to by some courts as the ‘mileage offset,’ properly is considered when determining the amount in controversy for jurisdictional purposes.”).2 Others characterize the mileage offset as a defense which may ultimately reduce the defendant’s liability but which need not be considered when assessing what the plaintiff has placed in controversy. See, e.g., Pristave v. Ford Motor Co., 2020 WL 4883878, at *3 (C.D. Cal. Aug. 20, 2020); Selinger v. Ford Motor Co., 2023 WL 2813510, at *8 (C.D. Cal. Apr. 5, 2023). FCA did not need to account for the mileage offset in calculating the amount in controversy. At bottom, the amount in controversy is what the plaintiff has chosen to put in dispute. The plaintiff is free to draft her complaint in a manner that places less in dispute, thereby circumscribing federal jurisdiction. In Song-Beverly Act cases, the plaintiff often does just that by specifying how many miles she put on the car. In Cox, for example, the plaintiffs alleged that they

1 Though the amount in controversy does not include attorney’s fees in California state court, they must be included when calculating the amount in controversy for purposes of federal jurisdiction. See Fritsch v. Swift Transportation Company of Arizona, LLC, 899 F.3d 785, 794 (9th Cir. 2018). 2 In Schneider v. Ford Motor Company, the Ninth Circuit approved the use of a mileage offset in calculating the amount in controversy. See 756 Fed. App’x 699, 701 n.3 (9th Cir. 2018) (unpublished). However, that case stopped short of holding that a mileage offset must be used when calculating the amount in controversy. Moreover, as an unpublished decision, it is only as useful as its persuasive value. “purchased the vehicle in December 2013 and presented it for repair more than four years later after driving the vehicle approximately 100,000 miles.” WL 5814518, at *4. That limited the maximum recovery “to a legal certainty,” placing the amount in controversy below the jurisdictional threshold. St. Paul Mercury Indem. Co. v. Red Cab Co., 303 U.S. 283, 289 (1938); see Cox, WL 5814518, at *5. This case is different. Weathersby’s complaint is devoid of any allegation regarding the number of miles driven on the vehicle. She alleges that she originally purchased the vehicle in 2019, but she does not even specify when the defect first arose. See Complaint, ¶ 6. She has, therefore, chosen to place the entirety of the car’s original value in controversy. Without question, the evidence adduced before or at trial may reveal that Weathersby is entitled to less than that original value. That, however, does not retroactively make the amount in controversy smaller. See Arias v. Residence Inn by Marriott, 936 F.3d 920, 927 (9th Cir. 2019 (“[T]he amount in controversy reflects the maximum recovery the plaintiff could reasonably recover.”) (emphasis in original); Lewis v. Verizon Commc’ns, Inc., 627 F.3d 395, 400 (9th Cir. 2010) (“The amount in controversy is simply an estimate of the total amount in dispute, not a prospective assessment of defendant’s liability.”). Therefore, FCA has established that at least $25,000 in actual damages are in controversy. Next, Weathersby objects to FCA incorporating double civil penalties in the amount in controversy. In its view, FCA must provide evidence that Weathersby will receive those penalties. That is wrong. By alleging in her complaint that “FCA’s failure to comply with its obligations under [section 1793.2(d)] was willful,” and that she was therefore “entitled to a civil penalty of two times [her] actual damages,” Weathersby placed that sum in controversy. Complaint ¶ 37; see Wickstrum v. FCA USA LLC, 2021 WL 532257, at *3 (S.D. Cal. Feb. 12, 2021) (“[T]he test is what amount plaintiff put in controversy, not FCA’s potential liability.”). It is difficult to understand what Weathersby thinks FCA should have done. Weathersby contends that FCA “is required to establish by a preponderance the willfulness that might support such an award,” Mot, at 12 (emphasis in original), but that would require FCA to offer evidence of its own liability. FCA cannot do that because, presumably, it does not think that it did anything wrong. See Arias, 936 F.3d at 927 (rejecting the notion that, in establishing the amount in controversy, a removing defendant must “prove it actually violated the law”). Weathersby points to several district court cases in which civil penalties were excluded from the amount-in-controversy calculation because the defendant made no showing that the facts of the case supported such a penalty. To the extent those cases ask the defendant to “point[] to allegations in the Complaint suggesting award of a civil penalty would be appropriate,” Zawaideh v. BMW of N. Am., LLC, 2018 WL 1805103, at *2 (S.D. Cal. Apr. 17, 2018), FCA has satisfied their requirement. To the extent they ask the defendant to do more—provide evidence—of their own willfulness, those cases are unpersuasive. See, e.g., Quinones v. FCA US LLC, 2020 WL 4437482, at *2 (C.D. Cal. July 31, 2020) (“[W]hile civil penalties are available for willful failure to comply with the Song-Beverly Act, Defendant has not offered any evidence of willfulness which might support such an award.”) (emphasis in original). Again, a removing defendant does not have to prove its own liability just to get into federal court. Finally, Weathersby contests FCA’s estimate of attorney’s fees. FCA estimated the value of attorney’s fees by offering evidence that plaintiffs’ attorneys in similar cases routinely request more than $50,000 in fees. See Sheridan Decl. at 2. Weathersby characterizes this evidence as “unsupported,” arguing that FCA must “mak[e] some effort to set forth the value of attorneys’ fees plaintiff is expected to incur, or that plaintiff has incurred.” Mot. at 15. By comparing this case to like cases, that is precisely what FCA has done. After all, this case has not proceeded past the preliminary stages, so the best estimate of what will be incurred in this case is what has happened in those cases like it. Other courts have endorsed this method of estimating attorney’s fees. See Selinger, 2023 WL 2813510, at *11 (“To determine whether a defendant has satisfied this burden, courts have considered whether the proposed fees match those awarded in similarly situated cases. . .”). In any event, the dispute over the precise calculation of attorney’s fees is unimportant in light of the amount already in controversy. Assuming $25,000 in actual damages are in dispute 1 (the minimum purchase price to which Weathersby admitted) and double civil penalties are at 2 stake, the amount in controversy is already at the $75,000. Even a single dollar in attorney’s fees 3 is enough to push the total above the jurisdictional threshold. See 28 U.S.C. § 1332(a).3 5 For the foregoing reasons, Weathersby’s motion to remand is denied. 6 7 ITISSO ORDERED. 8 9 Dated: October 29, 2025 10 RICHARD SEEBORG Chief United States District Judge a 12

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Z 18 19 20 21 22 23 244 25 3 Inthe alternative, FCA argues that Weathersby has consented to federal jurisdiction by “actively participating in this action” post-removal, including by “propounding discovery, serving a 26 deposition notice, participating in case management proceedings including case management statements, participating in mediation, and engaging in motions practice.” Opp. at 16. Because the 27 motion to remand is denied on other grounds, this argument is not addressed. 28 ORDER DENYING PLAINTIFF’S MOTION TO REMAND CASE No. 24-cv-08779-RS