the lemon it's beautiful it's fragrant and it's a very fine fruit but if this is what you've ended up with after you've bought a car or a truck you may want to turn up the volume and listen to what my next guest has to say today we're going to look at our nation's lemon laws that are intended to protect us against faulty and dangerous vehicles i married when she a mr silverman earned his law degree from georgetown university law center and later worked for the firm millbank two we had lee and with noise in new york city as a member of the firm's financial restructuring new york new jersey and pennsylvania and since its inception has represented more than eighty thousand consumers in lemon law and breach of warranty cases well thank you so much for being here thank you for having me so i just wanted to tell you a little bit about how this came about a few months ago a relative of mine was very unhappy with her prius that was dying while it was after you know was ten years old and so she went out and she bought a new car and spent about thirty three thousand dollars and two and a half weeks later the she was driving about forty miles an hour in the car just stopped  and she almost got hit from behind and the car behind her had to swerve into the other lane and it was very traumatic and i think it was also very traumatic where it happened so it was sort of unfortunate it was around a curve at any rate  i started so i was trying to help her and guide her and do some research and got into a lot of conversations with people on social media facebook and it was very interesting what i found was a lot of people who thought they knew about the lemon laws new jersey lemon laws that really knew very little and so that's why we're here today perfect well i'm a good person to speak to you are so i just wanted to really start off with the first question i have is you know i know your first handles cases in i think it's fifteen states yes and you have nine office locations  talked about the beginning how does new jersey stack up and you could talk about new jersey new york pennsylvania how do or how do our limon laws stack up against the rest of the country new jersey has the single strongest lemon law in the country really yes ok and that's for a few new jersey one of her new jersey five for new jersey ok that's for a few reasons so first i can get in a little bit of all states lemon laws are similar in terms of their substance before you get into the particularities that make new jersey a little bit stronger there's a few things that the lemon law is most concerned with the first is when are you having issues with your car relative to the date of purchase so the the delivery or in service state and relative to the odometer so the lemon law says did you did your issues first occur before a certain amount of miles around the car and did your issues first a curb or so before a certain amount of time elapsed since the delivery date so new jersey says the issue has to first occur within the first twenty four thousand miles or twenty four months since delivery which is a relatively long period to give you a couple points of comparison new york is twenty four months or eighteen thousand miles and pennsylvania is is twelve months  or twelve thousand miles each state is different in this regard but new jersey has the longest period so you can drive the car the most in new jersey and still have eleven by new jersey the lemon law also looks to how many times you gave the dealership an opportunity to repair your car before you're entitled to seek remedies under the lemon law so this ranges from three times to four times usually in most states new jersey says you just have to bring it back three times and after the third time if you still have an issue and even if you you don't still have an issue you can pursue a claim under the law in law so less times back and more mileage and more time in the jersey and there's a few other intricacies that make new jersey a little bit yeah that's what's come about to new jersey arrive at these very strong lemon laws after you know many changes to the law or did it kind of start out this way so new jersey always had a pretty consumer friendly lemon law but actually my father and his partner were instrumental in getting those periods extended so there were certain revisions to the law a number of years ago and all those are visions made the law even more consumer friendly  social media was the severity of the problem and i believe it was you know i was doing again i was talking to many many web sites and what one of them i believe said that if it's a life threatening malfunction of the car the dealer or the auto maker gets two chances and mike my cousin and i were questioning isn't that one too many as she kept saying why do i have to be there crashed on me so yeah it's a good way to think about it so you know the question is in the case of an eye i don't have enough insurance to cover my liability here so i'm not going to mention the automaker but there there was one auto maker who had vehicles that there were vehicles that were literally stopping no matter how car how fast the car was going to dead stop the highway whatever and the class action alleged that the automaker did not issue a recall in a timely manner in fact that took them several years that and then sort of the other piece of this part of the research was that i found that we have an unprecedented number of recalls now over the past few years so do the laws have to be stronger so there is no let's talk about the life threatening malfunction that would be a great place to store instance if you're driving a lot you know so you have a car brand new car essentially that just stops when you're driving is that considered life threatening i think you could make a case that it certainly is especially where you're if you're driving on a busy road or you're driving at higher speeds in your car stalls out in the middle of traffic and the risk of a rear ending accident or a pile up or or something of that nature is certainly there that's another aspect that new jersey's law is a little bit stronger than other states the new jersey lemon law actually says the manufacturer has one shot to repair a issue that could cause death or serious bodily harm ok and if they fail to repair it after that one shot after that want to tempt you have a lemon law case ok whereas it's usually three ok so whether or not have one too many i would say so but i have to say you know i'm advocating for my relative here she she said you know every time she gets in the car she she's traumatized by this she feels like this could happen any time she's afraid to go on highways absolutely yeah i would be too yeah i think certain auto manufacturers if your relative were to call our firm and we were to get in touch with the manufacturer and say listen here's what happened here was the circumstance here's the the you know trauma that's ensued then i think certain manufactures would be willing to take care of that consumer regardless of what the law says ok so there are certain manufacturers that are willing to do good and willing to help out their customers and others others aren't just depends on who made the car i can touch on the recall issue as well if you want sure yeah it's on president yeah what's going on there and i'm i really don't know technically speaking but cars are getting more complicated more things can go wrong and puter i systems even the mechanics of the engines are more complicated than ever to make the cars perform a little better so there's more things that can go wrong more components to recall but at the same time you know we always have to keep in mind the fact that these are big companies with financial incentives and certain people to report to in an accounting sense you know with regards to the cost of their parts the cost of the recall so it would be it would be naive to think that a certain cost benefit analysis isn't happening when they're deciding whether to  issue a recall or not so there might want to pinto all over again right now so there might be certain circumstances where a recall is warranted and it's not happening so it's up to the consumer to say you know i freely feel like there's something wrong with my car and i should see what i can do right once someone realizes that what they have is a lemon on their hands you know they've they've plunked down a lot of put down a lot of money and you know have one or more problems with what should they start doing the single most important thing in any case is as soon as you realize you have an issue with your car number one you take the car in as early as possible to make sure that you that you're within that lemon law period  and number two you keep all your receipts right so every time you bring the car in even if the repair is covered under warranty so you're not paying a dime to the dealership to have them diagnose the issue and repair the concern you still have to get a receipt because that's what has your complaint written down and has written down what the dealership is doing to try to fix it so when any case that's the single most important piece of evidence so in cases that are keyed off the number of times that you bring the vehicle back and the number of times that you report the same issue it becomes super important that we were able to hand the manufacture receipt that says you know it's pretty unequivocal that the car was brought in this number of times now actually what you just said there really brought up a very  critical issue here for instance so the lemon law says it's got to be the same does it have to be the same issue three times it does with regard to the number of times you bring the car back and i omitted one more distinction when i was talking about the lowest you can also have a lemon law case regardless of the number of times you brought the car back if your car is in the shop for a certain number of days right and that's in that period and is it twenty days it's twenty days  new jersey ok it's thirty days in most other states ok yet another way that the new jersey law is a little bit stronger right and just this is another sort of corollary piece of advice sorry to interrupt the new jersey lemon law applies whether or not you purchased whether you purchased a car in jersey or registered interesting so you know certain consumers might be near a new york dealership and it's totally fine to buy the car in new york as long as you register it in jersey ok so you could take advantage of those limits so in the situation where you're driving along in your car just stops and you're doing forty you're doing seventy whatever so you bring it in and they say ok it's this it's the fuel pump and we've replaced it and then it happens again you know but the dealer or the the manufacturer can say well yeah it stopped again but it's not because of the fuel pump it's because of something else does that count how did how did they deal with that how does the law deal with that that's a gray area but it's one that i think that the consumer lawyer has a much better argument on the law refers to the same nonconformity happening over and over again so it doesn't say defect ok nonconforming something unusual ok right the issue that you just rose is are the symptoms the nonconformity so your car stalled out in the middle of the road or is the technical issue the nonconformity right right so let's let's envision a scenario where cars parked and the headlights flicker after the cars parked and turned off right to us if that happens three times and it's brought in three times for that issue that's three times back for the same issue right whereas the dealer or the manufacturer might say oh it was a wiring harness the first time it was a water damage the next time i you know i think the consumer has a much better argument and that scenario ok that it's the symptoms we should be looking at especially since this is a consumer protection statute right well why isn't that clearer i mean you know what is so cool i mean how do you how do you battle that out then you know we usually don't run into a ton of issues in that regard but most manufacturers accept that the consumer has the better argument there this next question i know you'll probably just say come to kimmel and silverman what or some of the firm in the northeast where the oldest lemon law firm in the northeast we've been practicing for twenty five to twenty years we've been advocating for consumers in many different ways in that time it's not just representing them in court we've deve more claims than any other permanent ne and recovered more for consumers so the experience is definitely there and the representation is always cost free so if you have a question if you think you might have a case we're always there to to take take a call now that actually flows very nicely into the next question which is about and i wonder how many consumers know about this it's considered the shifting right sassy shifting you explain it you're the lawyer so it's it's pretty self explanatory i mean all in all it really means is that the consumer doesn't have to pay their lawyers right and if the consumer succeeds in pursuing their claim whether that means they settle their case or that means they take the case all the way to the they all the way to court they win right the manufacturer pays our fees so the consumer is never ever ever in a position where they're paying fees if if if we take on the case and we pursue the case in the consumer loses we still don't charge the consumer anyway so that's his or import it certainly something to look for then if the if you're shopping around for representation and somebody wants five thousand dollars up front and attorney  that's that should be a red flag yeah that's not the way the lemon law works yeah when you think about purchasing a vehicle is a pretty high cost consumer transaction but there are certain instances where you're buying a car you know a lower cost vehicle and you have issues and you think man if i want to hire a lawyer is a real then i want worth a car so that's maybe the most important part of the lemon laws i can also touch on there's a federal breech of warranty statute law magnusson moss warranty act that basically says if you don't have a lemon law case but the dealer or but the manufacturer otherwise breaches their warranty in a similar sense they sold you a vehicle with a warranty that said we're going to fix any defects   so does that protect you protect the consumer in any other way so if for instance your case for whatever reason doesn't fall cleanly under the lemon laws the breach of inter breeding the statute doesn't have any of those hard and fast requirements that we talked about so no twenty four months twenty four thousand miles no three times back so if your car is sixty thousand miles on it and you're experiencing serious issues and still have a br warranty claim ok so you can't get your car repurchase to replace which is what the lemon law provides for but we can get you cash to compensate you for the devaluation of your vehicle and the hassle and the nuisance that you've been through in terms of taking the car back  shit right now or or class action cases is there anything we should be paying attention to is there anything that's either threatening to change these laws or enhance these laws i think not in terms of proposed legislation by there has been a trend lately with class actions so i'm sure most of the viewers are aware the way class actions work when they're settled  you have to affirmatively opt out of the class so let's say you purchase a two thousand and fifteen f one fifty and there's a class action concerning f one fifty transmissions and you have transmission issues with your f one fifty you're automatically included in subsumed in that class so that case is settled so as we're going to give consumers eight hundred dollars to compensate them for the issues with their transmission and you're saying man i have a valid lemon law case they i could force them to out and still pursue your lemon law rights is if you check opt out and mail it back ok so that say you have to pay attention to those little cards you get with mouse print right you do have most of the time people throw them out right yes absolutely and they're there for growing their lemon law claim when they do that because they're settling the case right they never pursued in the first place because they're subsumed under the class right wow ok something to be aware of i'm going to talk about creative solutions you are dealing with all right let's say somebody does not go to a lawyer or they again the situation you know it hasn't happened three times but they're just they've had it with the car doesn't make sense to one of the things we talked about was painting a big lemon on the car and driving around with the name of the dealer on it not a good idea right not a good idea for a number of reasons but one thing that comes to mind is consumers often forget that the dealer in the manufacturer two separate entities right so if the dealer sold you a car with a manufacturing defect it's not necessarily the dealers fault so disparaging the dealer in any respect might not be the best right best solution there are certain instances where the dealer did act fraudulent only or misrepresented something to you and we can pursue a claim against the dealer when that happens through different statutes but it's always best to call a lawyer and see what the right thing to do is right in terms of  getting yourself you know some cash or a new car ok so in terms of there's no creative solutions that you would suggest you can always see would they they're willing to do for you as a matter of customer is we see time and again that sometime promise sometimes promises are made to the consumer you know like oh we'll get chain a new car and then they get in older car and they give you a horrible deal and they mess with the numbers in such a way that they're really you're really not not getting what you deserve and what you could get if you call a lawyer sometimes promises are made and then the dealer backs out and the consumer doesn't get a true contract in writing so you can you can see if you trust the dealership you can see what you can do it and see what you can get them to do is a matter of customer service but you know in those scenarios with your vehicle it's always best to call where the question though is so obviously it is the auto maker but doesn't i mean doesn't the dealer also have some responsibility if if they know that a particular car has had an issue  number of times it was sir i don't know it's kind of dicey so then are you so you're really pursuing your claim then directly against the auto maker and yes in the last the dealer was super negligent in the way it repaired your car your car or if it's sold you a vehicle that it knew was already branded as a lemon or it knew had serious frame damage or a very serious issue affecting the drive train other than that the dealer can sell you whatever it wants and it's only obligation is to repair your vehicle under the warranty as i authorized g m or chrysler valvo repair facility other than that they really don't have a ton of legal obligations to you after they sell you a car interest and yeah ok well thank you so much and this is all about what making lemonade out of lemons fabulous thing that's the best way to think about it ok well thanks so much and thank you for joining us for this edition of crossing nation if you would like to be on the show or you have an idea for a future segment please contact us on producing nation don't worry i'm mary