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Tesla lemon law case ends quietly with $126,836 settlement

Just over three months after the news was made public that a Wisconsin lawyer planned to file a lemon lawsuit against Tesla on behalf of his client, the self-proclaimed “lemon law king” released yet another video concluding the saga.

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Back in April we reported on a Wisconsin owner of a Tesla Model S that had some persistent technical difficulties. The car spent 66 days in the shop over its first 6 months, theoretically qualifying it as a “lemon” under Wisconsin law and entitling the owner to a refund.

After some sort of communication (or lack thereof, depending on whom you believe) between the parties, Robert Montgomery’s brazen lawyer, Vince Megna, rather obnoxiously stated his intent to file a lemon lawsuit against Tesla to the world in a YouTube video that went viral.

Tesla fired back in a blog post alleging the suspicious nature of the situation that led many on social media to believe Megna and his client weren’t as innocent as they claimed. Barely more than a week later, the public backlash and Tesla’s response led the doctor to retreat and opt for a settlement of $108,600 plus attorney fees as a refund for his defective Tesla.

Now, Inside EVs reports that Megna has made another unusual video (of course) explaining that he and his client have quietly settled with Tesla for $126,836. This total includes $18,500 in lawyer fees, which we will tastefully avoid commenting on. This is essentially the amount that Montgomery requested as a refund after giving up his crusade against the electric automaker.

In the video Megna admits that Tesla is “doing the right thing” by refunding his client. That is true, but it could be argued that the company could have saved itself a lot of hassle by doing the right thing in the first place.

Maybe the company was right and Montgomery and his lawyer did try to take advantage of Tesla with some questionable morals, but that doesn’t really matter now. The debacle is at last over and hopefully none of us ever have to watch any more Vince Megna videos again.

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Comments

John Goreham    July 16, 2014 - 7:26AM

What was the original objective of the lawsuit? I've never heard of any Lemon lawsuit that sought anything other than the refund of the car's value and attorneys fees. The people suing Tesla may be weird, but didn't they just come away with a complete "win" and Tesla a "loss?" The Mfg., Tesla, gets the car back, so "loss" is relative in any lemon law case.