20-year-old lemon law passes $376M in restitution
Monday, July 21, 2008 - 11:32 AM EDT
Jacksonville Business Journal
Florida’s Lemon Law Arbitration Program is two decades old and has reached a new milestone in the amount of refunds and replacements it has produced for car buyers who bought incessantly defective new vehicles.
At a St. Petersburg training session for the program’s arbitrators Friday, Attorney General Bill McCollum said the program has produced refunds or replacement vehicles for more than 14,000 consumers totaling $376 million in relief.
Florida’s lemon law gives manufacturers a reasonable number of attempts to repair substantial defects in a car. If they fail, they are required to buy back the defective vehicle and either pay a refund to the buyer or provide a replacement vehicle. Buyers are protected under the law for 24 months after the date of delivery of the vehicle.
Since 1988, Florida’s Lemon Law Unit has handled 20,178 cases.
The program has been so successful that representatives from Japan, Great Britain and Australia have sought information from Florida to assist with their efforts to develop lemon laws in those countries, the release said.
The law’s arbitration process does not require the retention of an attorney in order to participate and those that lose an arbitration case are not required to pay the manufacturer’s attorney fees, as may be the case in unsuccessful litigation conducted outside the program, the attorney general’s office said.
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