Federal Court Reopens Evidence In Case Challenging Massachusetts Right To Repair Law – Transport

On Thursday, October 28, a Boston federal judge agreed to reopen
evidence in Alliance for Automotive Innovation v. Healy, a
lawsuit challenging recent amendments to the Massachusetts Right to
Repair Law (the “Data Law”), and urged the parties to
report back by Friday, November 5 with proposals about how to
supplement the record. This development will further delay a
decision from the court on the injunction sought by the Alliance barring
enforcement of the Data Law and its requirement that, commencing
with Model Year 2022 (“MY22”), vehicles sold in
Massachusetts using telematics systems be equipped with “an
inter-operable, standardized and open access platform” that
will enable customers and independent repair shops to access
mechanical data from those systems.

The court had previously told the parties that it would render a
decision on the Alliance’s request for an injunction by
November 2. On Monday, October 25, however, the Massachusetts
Attorney General’s Office (“AGO”) filed a motion to
reopen evidence so that the AGO could show that OEMs can comply
with the Data Law by disabling telematics systems in MY22 and later
vehicles sold in Massachusetts. The AGO explained that it had been
contacted by a Massachusetts resident who reported that he had
purchased a 2022 Subaru Outback with its telematics system
disabled. According to the AGO, Subaru dealers in Massachusetts are
selling MY22 vehicles with a disclaimer that Subaru’s Starlink
system is “not available to Massachusetts residents,” and
that this is “a direct result of the new Data Law.”

The AGO argues that this new evidence contradicts claims by OEMs
during the trial in this matter last summer that it would be
impossible for them to implement the sweeping changes to vehicle
telematics systems required by the Data Law as early as MY22, which
was only months away when Massachusetts residents passed the law by
ballot initiative in November 2020. The
Alliance opposed the AGO’s motion, noting that the evidence
offered by the AGO is inadmissible hearsay. The Alliance also said
that the AGO was misconstruing the evidence at trial; the Alliance
did not offer evidence that OEMs could not disable telematics
systems on MY22 vehicles, but rather, offered expert testimony that
compliance with the enhanced telematics
requirements by the short deadline imposed by the Data Law was
impossible.  Put simply, the technology required by the
Data Law simply does not exist today.

At a hearing on Thursday, October 27, the court rejected the
Alliance’s objections and directed the parties to report back
within a week about how they proposed to further develop the
record. The court had previously indicated that it would render a
decision on the Alliance’s request for an injunction by
November 2, but OEMs will now need to wait until after this latest
evidentiary issue is resolved to learn whether they will be
required to comply with the Data Law, even though all (or virtually
all) OEMs already have begun manufacturing MY22 vehicles. In the
meantime, legislation amending the Data Law to extend
the compliance deadline until MY25 remains under review by a
committee of the Massachusetts Legislature.

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