A federal court late last month declined to certify three classes of consumers in litigation claiming that a defect in Harley-Davidson Motor Co. Inc.'s motorcycles caused severe wobbling and instability. See Steven C. Bruce, et al. v. Harley-Davidson Motor Co., Inc., et al., No. 2:09-cv-06588 (C.D. Cal.).

Plaintiffs were owners of Harley-Davidson motorcycles. According to plaintiffs, beginning in or before 2002, Harley-Davidson manufactured and sold touring motorcycles that had an alleged design defect in the form of an excessively flexible chassis. According to plaintiffs, the alleged defect caused “severe wobbling, weaving and/or instability,” especially occurring when riders made sweeping turns, and traveled at speeds above 55 miles per hour. Plaintiffs alleged that had they and other class members known of the defective nature of the vehicles, they would not have purchased or leased their motorcycles, or at least would have reduced the amount they were willing to pay for them. Hence, the classic alleged consumer fraud class action.

Plaintiffs moved for class certification, and relied on expert testimony to establish some of the Rule 23 elements.  Specifically, plaintiffs’ expert opined that a rider of a properly-designed
motorcycle should not experience a weave-mode instability event when riding within the
range of expected speeds.  He asserted that the class-purchased cycles shared a common design defect in the form of an “excessively flexible” chassis. The vehicles allegedly failed to “damp out,” or reduce, weave-mode oscillations to one half of their original amplitude within the time frame (a couple seconds) necessary to prevent them from becoming perceptible to the riders.

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