Kasowitz, on behalf of Ford Motor Co., Defeats Plaintiffs’ Petition for Permission to Appeal Order Denying Class Certification

Kasowitz, on behalf of Ford Motor Company, has successfully defeated the plaintiffs’ petition for permission to appeal the District Court’s order denying class certification in a lawsuit against the auto manufacturer.  The lawsuit, O’Connor v. Ford Motor Co., arises from alleged defects in automotive transmissions in certain 2017-2020 Ford F-150 pickup trucks, and was originally filed by fourteen plaintiffs seeking to represent a putative nationwide class and eight statewide classes of consumers.  As a result of Ford’s prior motion practice, most plaintiffs and claims had already been dismissed, and the remaining plaintiffs had withdrawn their requests for certification of the nationwide class and four of the eight states.

On September 14, 2026, Judge Jeffrey I. Cummings from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, issued a memorandum opinion denying the plaintiffs’ motion for class certification, which sought to certify statewide classes of all vehicle owner or lessees in the four remaining states—California, Illinois, Massachusetts, and New York.  On November 2, 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit rejected the plaintiffs’ petition for permission to appeal the District Court’s order denying class certification.

The Kasowitz team representing Ford is led by partner Hector Torres and includes partners Cindy Caranella Kelly, Stephen P. Thomasch, and Amit R. Vora, and associates Dariya V. Golubkova, Joshua Marks, Marcellene E. Hearn, Christopher Goetz, and Annaliese Cho Brellis.