Auto Industry Wins More Delays In Massachusetts Auto Repair Case

More than 2 years after expanding Massachusetts’ automobile right to repair law, voters in the state have yet to see it enacted. A federal judge’s decision last week means they’ll wait even longer.

A federal judge in Massachusetts sided with an automotive industry group last week, agreeing to allow more evidence in a case challenging the constitutionality of a 2020 ballot measure that expanded that state’s decade-old automobile right to repair law.

The order by Federal Judge Douglas Woodlock on January 12th adds at least another month of hearings and deliberations to the trial, which began more than two years ago and has seen more than half a dozen self-imposed deadlines for a ruling come and go. The delays have stalled enforcement of Question 1, a Massachusetts ballot measure that expanded the state’s existing automobile right to repair law to cover maintenance and diagnostic data transmitted wirelessly via vehicle telematics systems.

Spat Over Maine Ballot Measure

In an order, Judge Woodlock laid out a timetable for one of the parties in the case, the Alliance for Automotive Innovation (AAI), which represents auto manufacturers, to depose the Auto Care Association (ACA), an association representing the automotive aftermarket. The Auto Care Association is a major backer of right to repair laws including Question 1 in Massachusetts and a similar ballot measure, recently approved by the Maine Secretary of State for a state-wide ballot measure in 2023.

In a request to the court filed in mid-December, AAI asked Judge Woodlock to allow it to depose ACA for information related to changes in the wording of the proposed Maine ballot measure and Massachusetts Question 1. The information AAI sought may shed light on ACA misgivings about the language of Question 1, supporting automakers’ allegations that compliance with the Massachusetts law, as written, would jeopardize vehicle safety and security.

The information sought by AAI “is directly relevant to the determination that this Court will soon have to make whether the very party pushing those initiatives at the ballot box has now tacitly recognized the problems with several of the requirements it put into the Massachusetts initiative,” the Alliance wrote in a brief filed on December 13th with the court.

Federal Judge Douglas Woodlock

Massachusetts’s Attorney General Maura Healey (who has since taken office as Massachusetts Governor) argued that the AAI would further delay resolution of the case, but do little to clarify the legal issues at stake, while providing intelligence on a measure in another state that the AAI would be campaigning against.

The core issue in the case, the Attorney General said in a brief filed on December 6, is whether the Massachusetts law interferes with automakers’ ability to comply with superseding federal laws governing vehicle safety. “Has AAI proven that no set of circumstances exist under which a manufacturer could comply with the Massachusetts Data Access Law …and the federal Motor Vehicle Safety Act …or Clean Air Act,” the brief asks.

“The discovery now sought by AAI—18 months after the trial in this case concluded and three months after AAI learned about the Maine ballot initiative—has no bearing on that issue, will not assist the Court in answering that question, and will not help develop the record for appellate review,” the Attorney General’s Office wrote in a brief filed on December 6. “Rather, AAI’s belated discovery requests would create a sideshow focusing on the text of another state’s proposed ballot initiative that adds nothing to the proceedings, yet further delays them.”

Communications with Maine AG a focus

In the end, the Judge sided with the automakers. In a decision on January 5, he allowed a limited discovery by the AIA of the Auto Care Association to go forward, focused on “communications/documents between Auto Care Association (ACA) and, (i) the Maine Attorney General and (ii) the Right to Repair Committee in Maine.”

The decision will add at least a month to a case that has already dragged on for more than two years. According to a timeline negotiated by the two parties, the Auto Care Association will have until January 27th to respond to produce written responses and objections to AAI’s revised request and complete its production of documents in response to the AAI’s document subpoena. The schedule also allows for an ACA motion for a protective order with respect to Auto Innovators deposition subpoena (due by February 1, 2023) and for expected legal wrangling over the handling and disclosure of subpoenaed information, which will be allowed through the end of February.

A spokesperson for AAI declined to comment citing the ongoing litigation.

The ACA did not respond to a request for comment prior to publication.

Maine measure makes concessions on security

Automakers’ objections to the 2020 ballot measure in Massachusetts center on the requirement that 2022 model vehicles be compliant with the terms of the ballot measure - a timeline that they say is impossible to honor. Automakers also object to language in the ballot measure requiring they make telematics data related to service and repair available via an independent third party that would provide independent mechanics and owners with access to telematics data from all carmakers. In statements to Judge Woodlock in response to a request for information on what they had done to comply with Question 1 should the court rule against them, executives from car makers GM and Stellantis said that no such entity exists and therefore it was “impossible” to comply with the law.

The language of the proposed Maine ballot measure is largely similar to that in Massachusetts’ existing auto right to repair law from 2012 as well as the 2020 expansion that included telematics data in the list of data manufacturers must provide to owners and independent repair shops. It creates different requirements for access to maintenance and repair data, depending on the model year of the vehicle. However, for late model vehicles, the Maine ballot measure carves out an exclusion for the sharing of “diagnostic, service and repair information necessary to reset an immobilizer system or security-related electronic modules” with motor vehicle owners and independent repair facilities.

However, if excluded, the information necessary to reset an immobilizer system or security-related electronic modules must be made available to motor vehicle owners and independent repair facilities “through the secure data release model system as used on the effective date of this section by the National Automotive Service Task Force or other known, reliable and accepted systems,” the ballot measure reads. As passed by Massachusetts voters, Question 1 did not include such an exception.

AAI is already working to derail the Maine ballot measure, in a replay of the high profile campaign it ran to defeat Question 1 in Massachusetts - a campaign that was notable for its use of “scare tactics” including commercials that implied making repair available might leave homes open to burglary.

An AIA memo on the Maine referendum argues that the ballot measure poses cybersecurity threats to vehicles and is not needed, echoing arguments the group has made in other states. The argument rests on the memorandum of understanding (MOU) automakers signed in 2014 in response to the first Massachusetts right to repair law, which provides owners and independent repair shops with access to repair data via a physical data port (OBD port) that is standard on all non-electric vehicles sold in the U.S. “This ballot initiative is entirely unnecessary. Mainers already can have their car repaired by any repair shop they choose. And all the information needed to diagnose and repair a vehicle today is also already made available to all vehicle repair shops,” the memo reads, in part.

As for the cybersecurity argument, recent reporting has exposed a raft of serious and remotely exploitable security flaws in vehicle telematics systems from more than 16 different automakers as well as leading telematics suppliers like SiriusXM - reporting that tends to undermine automakers claims of risks to highly secure vehicle telematics software and ecosystems.

It is unclear whether the discovery requested by the Alliance for Automotive Innovation will have any bearing on Judge Woodlock’s consideration of AAI’s challenge to Question 1, which has already delayed implementation of that law for two years, after Massachusetts’ Attorney General Maura Healey agreed not to enforce the law while the AAI’s challenge played out in court.

A New Sheriff in Town?

With both sides in the case expecting appeals, no matter the Judge’s eventual ruling, there’s no end in sight to the federal case challenging the law. However, a source close to the case noted that Judge Woodlock raised the fact that a new Attorney General of Massachusetts will take office this month, replacing Maura Healey, who has ascended to the Governership of the state. The Judge suggested that the incoming Attorney General, Andrea Campbell, may take a different position than AG Healey on enforcing the right to repair law immediately, rather than waiting on a ruling. If so, Question 1 may soon become law, federal case or none.