## Facts

- Multiple federal cases concerning allegedly defective Takata airbags were centralized in an MDL in the Southern District of Florida.
- The MDL was divided into an economic-loss track (purely financial damages) and a personal-injury track; this order addressed only the economic-loss track.
- Plaintiffs alleged vehicles contained Takata inflators using ammonium nitrate, creating a risk of rupture and metal shrapnel.
- Named Mazda purchasers (Birdsall, Pardue, and Vukadinovic) sought economic damages only (e.g., diminished value and overpayment) and alleged no personal injury or property damage from airbag deployment.
- Plaintiffs brought multiple state-law consumer and common-law claims and a federal warranty claim against Mazda, including fraudulent concealment, unjust enrichment, Magnuson–Moss warranty claims, and California statutory claims.
- Mazda moved under Rule 12(b)(6) to dismiss all claims asserted against it in the operative consolidated complaint.

## Issues

1. Whether non-California purchasers could assert claims under California statutes (including Song–Beverly, UCL, CLRA, and related California consumer provisions).
2. Whether state economic loss rules (including Florida and Pennsylvania) barred fraudulent-concealment tort claims where plaintiffs alleged only economic loss.
3. Whether plaintiffs plausibly alleged Mazda’s knowledge of the alleged defect and a state-law duty to disclose sufficient to plead fraudulent concealment.
4. Whether unjust enrichment and warranty-related theories could proceed notwithstanding warranty/contract allegations and asserted limitations on remedies.

## Decision

- Mazda’s motion to dismiss was granted in part and denied in part.
- Claims pleaded exclusively under California law were dismissed as to purchasers who bought their vehicles outside California.
- Fraudulent-concealment claims governed by Florida and Pennsylvania law were dismissed as barred by those states’ economic loss rules because only economic damages were alleged.
- Pardue’s Alabama-law fraudulent-concealment claim was allowed to proceed based on sufficiently pleaded knowledge and a duty to disclose.
- At least one unjust-enrichment claim (including Vukadinovic’s) survived where plaintiffs plausibly alleged circumstances making warranty relief inadequate or unconscionable.
- Other state-specific claims survived or were dismissed depending on the governing law and the sufficiency of allegations as to knowledge, duty, and damages.

## Legal Principles

- In a multistate putative class action, choice-of-law analysis generally applies the substantive law of the state tied to the transaction (such as the state of purchase/use), not a single forum-favorable state’s law for all claimants.
- State economic loss rules may bar tort remedies (including certain fraud-based theories) when the alleged harm is purely economic and arises from a product-purchase relationship without personal injury or property damage.
- Fraudulent concealment requires plausible allegations that the defendant knew of the material defect and had a duty to disclose under the applicable state law.
- Unjust enrichment may be unavailable where an enforceable contract governs, but may proceed at the pleading stage when plaintiffs plausibly allege warranty remedies are inadequate or unconscionable under the governing law.

## Conclusion

The court narrowed the economic-loss claims against Mazda by dismissing non-California plaintiffs’ California-law causes of action and barring certain fraud claims under states’ economic loss doctrines, while allowing specific state-law concealment, unjust enrichment, and related warranty-based claims to proceed where plaintiffs adequately pleaded knowledge, duty to disclose, and a viable theory of relief under the governing law.


In re Takata Airbag Prods. Liab. Litig., 193 F. Supp. 3d 1324 (S.D. Fla. 2016)