Unreported / Non-Citable
Background
Mauricio Caballero bought a used 2023 Nissan Rogue and alleged it suffered “significant defects and non-conformities” during the warranty period. He sued Nissan North America in San Bernardino County Superior Court, asserting violations of the federal Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act (MMWA) and the California Uniform Commercial Code. He sought actual damages and a civil penalty.
Nissan removed under both 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question) and § 1332 (diversity), and Caballero moved to remand, arguing the case was worth less than the federal jurisdictional minimums.
The Court’s Holding
The court denied remand. The MMWA gives federal courts jurisdiction only when the amount in controversy is $50,000 or more. Because the MMWA does not specify how to calculate damages, federal courts look to applicable state law — here, California’s Song-Beverly Consumer Warranty Act. Under Song-Beverly, the buyer of a vehicle may recover the actual price paid, less a mileage offset (calculated by dividing the number of miles driven before the first repair attempt by 120,000 and multiplying by the vehicle’s purchase price), plus a civil penalty of up to two times actual damages for a willful violation, plus attorney’s fees.
The court applied that framework to Nissan’s removal evidence. Although the court noted that Caballero’s counsel had attached unrelated exhibits to the remand motion (proof of service and a purchase agreement from a different case in Stanislaus County), Nissan supplied competent proof through its own evidence of the Rogue’s purchase price, a mileage-offset calculation, and the available civil-penalty multiplier. Together those figures plausibly exceeded both the MMWA $50,000 floor and the diversity $75,000 floor, and Caballero failed to mount a successful factual attack on the underlying numbers.
The court rejected the argument that a defendant must produce evidence of its own willfulness to invoke the Song-Beverly civil-penalty multiplier — an inquiry the Central District has repeatedly declined to require for amount-in-controversy purposes.
Key Takeaways
- The MMWA carries its own $50,000 amount-in-controversy floor; meeting it requires looking to state-law damages remedies for warranty claims.
- In California, Song-Beverly damages — purchase price minus mileage offset (miles driven before first repair attempt divided by 120,000, multiplied by purchase price) — supply the framework for both MMWA and diversity calculations.
- Civil penalties under Song-Beverly (up to 2x actual damages for a willful violation) count toward the amount in controversy when the plaintiff alleges willfulness and demands the maximum penalty.
- Defendants need not prove their own willfulness to invoke the civil-penalty multiplier at the removal stage.
- A facial attack on a notice of removal does not require evidence; a factual attack triggers a preponderance burden on the defendant, who can rely on competent proof and reasonable assumptions.
- Plaintiffs’ counsel should ensure the exhibits attached to remand motions actually relate to the case at hand.
Why It Matters
This decision reinforces the now-standard Central District framework for MMWA removal: even when the federal hook for jurisdiction is the federal-question side of MMWA rather than diversity, courts borrow the Song-Beverly damages, civil-penalty, and fees framework to assess the amount in controversy. That methodology essentially eliminates remand based on the federal-question vs. diversity distinction in California lemon-law cases.
For consumer attorneys, the order is a reminder that pleading the MMWA as a federal cause of action invites a federal forum unless the complaint itself confines the amount in controversy below the federal minimums. For manufacturers, the case validates a removal posture that mixes federal-question and diversity grounds and supports the analysis with sales contract, repair history, and statutory penalty figures.