The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals recently held that in a class action an unaccepted offer to refund the complete purchase price of a car did not moot a purchaser?s claim. In Laurens v. Volvo Cars of North America, _____ F3d ____ (2017), 2017 WL 3598070 the husband of the purchaser of a Volvo car was named as a plaintiff in a class action against Volvo claiming that the car purchased fell far short of the mileage which should be produced by one battery charge. A motion to dismiss was filed on the ground that the husband-plaintiff was not the purchaser and in fact that it was his wife who purchased the vehicle. A letter was sent to the wife offering to settle for the complete purchase price of the Volvo. She refused the offer and became a plaintiff in the lawsuit.
Volvo then filed a motion to dismiss and the district court dismissed the action on the ground that the offer to the wife before she became a plaintiff made her action moot.
The court reviewed Supreme Court precedent and held that based on Campbell-Ewald in which the Supreme Court held that an unaccepted settlement offer did not moot a plaintiff in a class action and then said: