Rep. Bill Kramer (R-Waukesha) has introduced Assembly Bill 200, which will help bring Wisconsin’s lemon law back into the mainstream with a number of reasonable changes.
Wisconsin is universally known among automobile, motorcycle, truck, and recreational vehicle manufacturers as having the worst lemon law in the country. The law places unreasonable and unworkable requirements on vehicle manufacturers that allows lawyers like self-proclaimed “Lemon Law King” Vince Megna to win outsized awards that have no nexus to fairness or the underlying goals of the law. For example, in Marquez v. Mercedes-Benz, the cost of the vehicle was roughly $56,000. Had the owner provided the manufacturer the necessary bank account information in a timely manner, the owner would have been given a check for the vehicle, plus other costs. However, the current law creates a substantial incentive for owners and their lawyers to impede resolution of a lemon law claim. By delaying the process one day beyond the 30-day statutory deadline, vehicle owners and their attorneys hit the jackpot, which in the Marquez case, was $618,000.1
Megna has posted the following video response to the bill’s introduction.
A Senate companion bill is expected to be introduced soon. For more information about this, and other bills supported by WCJC, please click here.
1 See Marquez v. Mercedes-Benz USA, LLC, 2012 WI 57; “High court upholds record lemon law award,” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, May 25, 2012.