ORLANDO, Fla. (Sept. 25, 2015) — A judge in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida has dismissed a multi-district litigation brought by a group of automotive repair and collision shops which claimed that 39 different auto insurance companies coerced them into suppressing both prices and wages.
After three successive complaints, the plaintiffs had not even come close to substantiating their allegations, Judge Gregory A. Presnell ruled Sept. 23.
The original complaint, filed with the Middle Florida court in February 2014, accused the insurers of “an ongoing, concerted and intentional course of action and conduct…to improperly and illegally control and depress automobile damage repair costs.”
That complaint was dismissed in June 2014, Judge Presnell noted in his order.
“It failed to properly set forth the basis for this court's jurisdiction,” he wrote. “It failed to identify which parties had ongoing contracts with one another.
“All of the allegations of wrongdoing were attributed, collectively, to every defendant, even when such collective attribution made no sense,” Judge Presnell wrote. Neither the second nor the third complaints corrected these shortcomings, he added.
Judge Presnell dismissed the case with prejudice, meaning the plaintiffs cannot refile a complaint on these charges.
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