(Bloomberg) -- Three family-owned Volkswagen franchisedealers accused the carmaker of fraud for installing pollution-control cheatingdevices in diesel vehicles and sticking them withcontinuing losses by failing to fix the problem.

The lawsuit, filed Wednesday by three dealerships inFlorida and Illinois owned by the family of Ed Napleton, seeksto represent all Volkswagen franchise dealers in the U.S. in aclass action. The suit in Chicago federal court is the first by afranchise dealer over the diesel-cheating scandal, according toNapleton’s lawyers.

Volkswagen’s “monumental fraud” is “one of the most significantenvironmental crimes in history,” the dealers said in theircomplaint. The scandal has “caused great harm to franchise dealerslike plaintiffs whose profits have been erased and whosedealerships have plummeted in value due to the inability to selltens of thousands of affected vehicles.”

Eric Felber, a Volkswagen spokesman, declined to comment on thecase.

Volkswagen AG admitted last year that it had rigged diesel engines on about 11 millioncars worldwide so that emission controls switched ononly during testing. Those controls shut off while the car was onthe road, increasing fuel efficiency and performance but producingnitrogen oxide pollution well in excess of the U.S. legalstandard.

Fix deadline

The admission set off a rash of lawsuits by consumers, used-cardealers, rival dealers and governments, including the U.S. Morethan 600 lawsuits have been combined before one judge in SanFrancisco, who has given VW an April 21 deadline to come up with aconcrete and detailed proposal on how to fix the vehicles. Criminaland regulatory probes of the carmaker are also under way in theU.S. and Germany.

U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer, who’s overseeing thelitigation, is being asked by plaintiffs in the lawsuits to approvethree classes — one each for consumers, Volkswagen resellersand non-VW dealers. The rival franchise dealers are claiming lostsales from false advertising by VW over its diesel models.

Related: Texas county sues VW for $100 million over doctoreddiesels

The VW franchise dealers have been among the biggest losers,said Napleton’s attorney Steve Berman. “Franchise owners are nowleft with lots full of CleanDiesel vehicles they are unable tosell, and these cars have suffered tremendous loss of value andtake up inventory space and carrying costs,’’ he said in astatement.

“Volkswagen has wholly failed to respond to dealer concerns in asubstantive manner,’’ Napleton said in a statement. “It has talkedfor months about multiple plans, but done nothing and left usdealers in the red, and in limbo.’’

Napleton was caught short by the emissions fraud announcement,according to the lawsuit.

“Two weeks after VW admitted to regulators that it had installedillegal defeat devices in hundreds of thousands of U.S. cars, andthree days before those admissions were made public, VW pushedthrough Ed Napleton’s purchase of a Volkswagen franchise in Urbana,Illinois, at top dollar, as if the dieselgate scandal was not aboutto toss the Volkswagen brand value off a proverbial cliff,’’ theplaintiffs said in the complaint.

The case is Napleton Orlando Imports LLC v. Volkswagen Groupof America Inc., 16-cv-04071, U.S. District Court, NorthernDistrict of Illinois (Chicago).

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