Under certain circumstances, Mercedes-Benz may have to pay damages to a diesel owner for an inadmissible defeat device during exhaust gas cleaning. The buyer has a claim for damages if he has suffered damage due to the defeat device, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled on Tuesday on the complaint of a Mercedes buyer against the car manufacturer. This question wanted to have clarified the district court of Ravensburg with the complaint of a Mercedes driver by the ECJ.

With regard to compatibility with an EU internal market directive from 2007, the Grand Chamber in Luxembourg emphasised the predominance of the individual interests of the buyer over the automotive industry. Member States should therefore provide that the purchaser of such a vehicle is entitled to compensation from the manufacturer.

This could have a major impact on German jurisprudence. Because at the Federal Court of Justice (BGH), plaintiffs have so far only had a chance of compensation if they were deliberately and intentionally deceived by the manufacturer in an immoral manner. These strict criteria were only met by the VW scandal engine EA189. The ECJ is now satisfied with negligent action – which is easier to prove.

Thousands of lawsuits suspended

The judges in Germany must now implement these requirements. In order to await the ECJ ruling, courts of all instances had put mass diesel proceedings on ice, in which this question is important. At the BGH alone, more than 1900 appeals and non-admission appeals are currently pending, the clear majority had been postponed for the time being because of the ECJ proceedings.

The ECJ is thus the first supreme court to issue a judgment against Mercedes-Benz. In 2021, the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) rejected claims for damages against the Stuttgart-based group because no fraud intentions were recognizable. In a landmark ruling from May 2020, Karlsruhe had declared that car manufacturers are only liable if they have acted immorally and intentionally. In the case of Volkswagen's scandalous EA189 engine, this helped thousands of diesel drivers to pay damages.

In a first statement, Mercedes-Benz explained that the ECJ decision was only about the damage actually suffered by a buyer. In addition, there must be an inadmissible defeat device, which the defendant car manufacturer considers disputed in the present case. "Mercedes-Benz vehicles that were or are affected by a recall can continue to be used permanently without restriction after appropriate software updates," it says from Stuttgart. How the national courts will apply the ECJ's decision in relation to national law remains to be seen.

BGH hearing in May

The "Diesel Senate" of the BGH has already scheduled a hearing for 8 May, in which it wants to discuss the "possibly resulting consequences for German liability law" in order to provide the lower courts with guidelines as quickly as possible. Because with the ECJ ruling, not all questions have been clarified.

The ECJ has stipulated that, in application of the principle of effectiveness, the compensation determined by the national courts must be proportionate to the damage suffered. Usually, German plaintiffs had to have the mileage of their vehicle offset against their liability claim. In the case of older diesel vehicles with high mileages, this could completely consume the claim for damages – the customers were left empty-handed.

According to the requirement from Luxembourg, German civil courts will therefore have to reassess the question of compensation for use. In addition, the focus is now likely to be more on the length of civil lawsuits. For years, consumer advocates have accused the defendant car manufacturers of unnecessarily prolonging the proceedings. The automotive industry is threatened by a new wave of lawsuits.