I guess Bentley Motors is not only snooty but arrogant as well. My client, Matt, is a successful business owner from Orange County who bought a Bentley Arnage as his “dream car” in 2002. The car came with the Bentley 3-year warranty. Matt has had numerous airbag light illuminations with this vehicle, and the problems persist to this day. Bentley’s representatives admitted to him that they did not know how to correct the problem.
Yesterday, after waiting for a trial courtroom for over two days, we had a settlement conference, where Bentley made its very first offer to settle the case: Bentley wanted my client to pay a substantial sum to Bentley to trade into a new vehicle! Obviously, my client and I rejected this bogus offer, which completely ignores Bentley’s obligation for paying my client’s damages as well as my firm’s attorney’s fees if we win the trial.
Bentley recently lost another case in “the O.C.”, where it got tagged for a double civil penalty for refusing to repair or replace a vehicle with a defective check engine light and a strong odor in the passenger compartment.
I guess Bentley will simply have to continue to get tagged at trial before it learns its lesson about selling defective cars in California. California laws force Bentley to repurchase defective cars, and if Bentley refuses, the law makes Bentley pay attorney’s fees and penalties to successful plaintiffs. All the old-line British royal snooty arrogance in the world won’t change these simple facts, and Bentley will simply have to learn them with time.