(Bloomberg) -- Three family-owned Volkswagen franchise dealers accused the carmaker of fraud for installing pollution-control cheating devices in diesel vehicles and sticking them with continuing losses by failing to fix the problem.
The lawsuit, filed Wednesday by three dealerships in Florida and Illinois owned by the family of Ed Napleton, seeks to represent all Volkswagen franchise dealers in the U.S. in a class action. The suit in Chicago federal court is the first by a franchise dealer over the diesel-cheating scandal, according to Napleton’s lawyers.
Volkswagen’s “monumental fraud” is “one of the most significant environmental crimes in history,” the dealers said in their complaint. The scandal has “caused great harm to franchise dealers like plaintiffs whose profits have been erased and whose dealerships have plummeted in value due to the inability to sell tens of thousands of affected vehicles.”
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