If you’ve had a Kia or Hyundai stolen in Milwaukee, you may be eligible to be part of the class-action lawsuit against the companies. WTMJ’s Libby Collins sits down with the lawyer who filed the suit to discuss how he became involved with the case, how he feels about copycat lawsuits in bigger cities, and more on this week’s WTMJ Conversations. Listen in the player above.
A partial transcript is provided below, courtesy of eCourt Reporters.
LIBBY COLLINS: Your associate, Josh —
JAMES BARTON: Yes.
LIBBY COLLINS: — went to the junkyard —
JAMES BARTON: He did.
LIBBY COLLINS: — got those two steering columns.
JAMES BARTON: Yep.
LIBBY COLLINS: How involved were the two of you in looking at it? Did you hire a mechanic to go through it and show it to you? What did you discover as you were looking at those?
JAMES BARTON: I have to be a little bit careful, because while it’s in the — I think it’s in the public record now, based on everything that’s been — you know, everything that’s happened since we filed our lawsuit, our original lawsuit was under seal, but suffice it to say, we figured it out, but I’m not —
LIBBY COLLINS: Just the two of you?
JAMES BARTON: Just the two of us. I mean —
LIBBY COLLINS: You’re not like mechanics or anything like that?
JAMES BARTON: No, not by trade.
LIBBY COLLINS: So, you were able to look at it and figure out what the deal was.
JAMES BARTON: Yeah, within a few minutes. And, again, I’m not an engineer, I’m not — my wife will be the first person to tell you, I’m not like a handy guy. I once unclogged my dishwasher, and that’s like my claim to fame of being Bob Vila at the house. Like, I’m not good at this stuff at all, which is a problem though, because if I can figure it out in a few minutes, right, it explained why this was an issue.
And so, from there we went out and we located and hired an expert, and I said, “Tell me I’m crazy. Tell me that I’m wrong in how I figured this out.” And that’s when our expert looked at it and said, “No, you’re not crazy. This is a huge problem.”
