Hoping for a faster-- and perhaps more favorable-- ruling, attorneys for the state are fighting Volkswagen's desire to have a lawsuit against the company handled in federal court by a federal judge.
Arizona sued the German car maker after it admitted it had programmed its supposedly clean-burning diesel engines to essentially fool emission testing so that when its cars were on the road, they emitted up to 40 times more pollutants than legally allowed. The company moved to have the case combined with lawsuits from other states and handled in federal court.
But Assistant Attorney General O.H. Skinner is fighting the move, saying Arizona's claim is not based on federal environmental violations like other states but on the state's consumer fraud laws. "Arizona state courts are the experts in dealing with that. They see these cases on a regular basis. They're fully familiar with the breadth and scope of our powers and how much we can do under the statute," Skinner said.
That includes fines of up to $10,000 per violation of misleading through false advertising. Given the number of Arizonans who bought Volkswagens, those fines could total more than $40 million.
Skinner suggested state judges who are aware of the law are more likely to reach the "right outcome." He acknowledged Volkswagen has made offers to buy back vehicles from disgruntled consumers but that does not undermine this lawsuit-- "The point of the civil penalties is separate from that. It is to prevent people from doing this in the future, tell people that you can't just do this and then get called out and then scurry to try to make people whole and make the case go away."
Volkswagen has consistently refused to comment on pending litigation.