Capic v Ford Motor Company of Australia Pty Ltd (Supplementary Common Questions and Other Issues) [2026] FCA 38

This decision sits inside the broader Capic class action against Ford about vehicles fitted with the DPS6 Powershift transmission. By the time Perram J gave these reasons on 2 February 2026, the lead applicant Ms Capic had already succeeded in earlier stages on key issues about defect, acceptable quality and damages. Her own claim had been resolved. What remained were issues affecting the wider class.

That wider class had become commercially significant because the affected vehicles had circulated through the market for years. Some were still with original buyers. Others had been sold by second-hand dealers, transferred privately, or moved as part of business sales. The Court therefore had to deal with a practical question that matters well beyond the motor industry: when defective goods move through several owners, who can still claim against the manufacturer under the Australian Consumer Law?

The reasons also show the procedural stage the case had reached. The Court was no longer deciding whether the DPS6 transmission had defects in the abstract. Earlier judgments had already done much of that work. Instead, the Court was dealing with supplementary common questions and other issues that had to be resolved before a later quantification process for class members could proceed.

The Court summarised the earlier history in some detail. In 2021, Ms Capic proved at trial that the DPS6 transmission in her Ford Focus was not of acceptable quality within section 54 of the ACL. The findings of fact about her vehicle included three component deficiencies and two architectural deficiencies. The component deficiencies were leaking input shaft seals, inadequate clutch lining and a transmission control module that could develop solder cracks after repeated heating and cooling. The architectural deficiencies were inadequate heat management and inadequate management of torsional vibrations through the drivetrain.

Those deficiencies were associated with symptoms including clutch shudder and sudden, pronounced drops in power. The Full Court later found that the architectural deficiencies also increased the propensity of the component deficiencies to produce the associated symptoms. Ford, as the Australian importer, was treated as the manufacturer under section 7(1)(e) of the ACL.

The earlier litigation also established important damages points. Ms Capic recovered reduction in value damages under section 272(1)(a). She also recovered consequential damages under section 272(1)(b), including for excess GST and finance costs. Interest was also addressed. The High Court later confirmed that reduction in value damages are assessed at the time of purchase, but said that if the possibility of future fixes existed at that time, that possibility could be relevant to the valuation exercise. On remitter, the trial court reassessed the matter and awarded the same reduction in value amount as before.

At trial, the class consisted of people who had purchased a Ford Focus, Fiesta or EcoSport fitted with the DPS6 transmission between 1 January 2011 and 29 November 2018. The Court noted that 73,451 such vehicles were sold in Australia during that period. But that raw number did not capture the true size of the class, because many of those vehicles had later been on-sold into the second-hand market, often more than once.

After the trial reasons, the class was expanded to include people who acquired an interest in the vehicles between 30 November 2018 and 29 November 2024. In practical terms, the class then covered people who acquired an interest in the relevant vehicles over almost 14 years. That meant the Court had to confront the legal consequences of long ownership chains.

The reasons explain why this matters under the ACL. Each time a vehicle is supplied in trade or commerce to a consumer, section 54 may create a guarantee that the vehicle is of acceptable quality. In the life of one vehicle, that can happen more than once. A car may be sold new by a dealer, then later sold by a second-hand dealer, and then perhaps sold privately. Once section 271 is added, the question becomes: which people in that chain are "affected persons" who can sue the manufacturer, and under which guarantee?

The Court used a real example to test the issue. Ramair Packaging Pty Ltd bought a new 2015 Ford Focus from a Melbourne dealer. Ramair later sold part of its business, Australian Visual Solutions, to Metal Manufactures Pty Ltd, and the vehicle went with that business. Ms Toni Dunn then bought the vehicle from Metal Manufactures on 14 June 2018 for $6,500. There was no dispute that Ramair could claim under the ACL, and no dispute that Metal Manufactures could claim under one limb of the definition of affected person. The real fight was whether Ms Dunn, as a later owner, could also qualify.

The key legal issue was how sections 54, 271 and 272 of the ACL operate when the same defective vehicle has had multiple owners. The Court identified two linked questions. First, if the same vehicle is supplied in trade or commerce more than once, such as first by a new-car dealer and later by a second-hand dealer, which section 54 guarantee supports a claim for reduction in value damages? The reasons call this the multiple guarantees issue.

Secondly, the Court had to consider the definition of "affected person" in section 2. That definition includes a consumer who acquires the goods, a person who acquires the goods from the consumer other than for re-supply, and a person who derives title to the goods through or under the consumer. The class argued that the third limb should be read broadly enough to include later successors in title. Ford disputed that. The reasons call this the successor in title issue.

The catchwords also show that there were additional issues about whether later-added class members were time barred and whether the Court could make orders under section 33Z of the Federal Court of Australia Act to crystallise class members' claims. Those issues are identified, but the available text does not contain the full final reasoning on them.

The reasons set out the statutory framework in detail. Section 54 creates the acceptable quality guarantee when goods are supplied in trade or commerce to a consumer. Section 271 allows an affected person to recover damages from the manufacturer if that guarantee applies and is not complied with. The definition of affected person is therefore central.

The Court noted that each dealer sale may create a fresh section 54 guarantee in relation to the same vehicle. That creates the possibility that an affected person may seek to claim under more than one guarantee, or that different owners may seek to rely on different guarantees. The Court expressly identified this as a live issue between the parties.

On the successor in title issue, the class argued for a broad reading of the third limb of the definition so that it would extend to any successor in title of the original consumer. Ford argued that this reading would make the second limb unnecessary and would undermine the express exclusion for acquisitions made for re-supply. Ford also raised practical concerns, including the possibility that limitation periods might effectively restart for each new owner and that claims by later owners might be assessed by reference to the original purchaser's circumstances.

Perram J treated some of Ford's practical concerns with scepticism. The reasons say, for example, that one concern was speculative and that another did not assist much because Ford's own approach also allowed for delayed acquisition by later affected persons. But the judge also said Ford's main textual point about the relationship between the second and third limbs was not without force. In particular, the reasons note the interpretive problem that a broad reading of the third limb could make the second limb's positive operation unnecessary and frustrate its negative operation.

The class relied on the history of similar wording in the old Trade Practices Act and on parliamentary materials indicating that manufacturer liability was intended to extend to successors in title and to follow title in the goods. The reasons say that this material supported the class's interpretation. However, the available text ends before the Court's full reasoning is complete, so the final conclusion on the successor in title issue cannot safely be stated here as definitive.

The judgment is also important because it explains how the class action was moving toward a later damages process. The Court said that because it was already known when each defect was present in the production process for each model, it was possible to identify for each vehicle the particular combination of risks affecting it. The proposed method was to populate a matrix of possible combinations of the five defects, remembering that all vehicles had at least the two architectural deficiencies.

Sample group members had been identified for that purpose. The Court said it would, in due course, assess the reduction in value damages for those sample group members and populate the matrix with resulting percentage reductions. At the same time, the Court would assess their entitlements to other consequential damages. The reasons say that this was to occur at a hearing scheduled for 14 to 18 September 2026.

That is commercially significant because it shows how a large product-defect class action can move from common findings to a structured quantification exercise. Instead of re-litigating every issue for every owner from scratch, the Court was preparing a framework that could be used to assess claims more systematically. But the Court also made clear that some legal issues had to be resolved before that hearing could proceed, which is why these supplementary reasons mattered.

The catchwords also refer to proposed orders under section 33Z of the Federal Court of Australia Act to crystallise class members' claims. Because the available text cuts off before the end of the reasons, the final position on those proposed orders should be checked in the complete judgment and any entered orders.

If your business manufactures or imports goods sold through dealer networks, this case is a warning that ACL exposure may continue to be argued after the first retail sale. Where goods move through dealer re-sales, private transfers or business asset sales, later owners may still seek to frame claims against the manufacturer. That can affect reserves, remediation strategy, complaint handling, record retention and limitation analysis.

If your business buys and sells vehicles, including as part of fleet management, leasing, insolvency administration or business acquisitions, the chain of title matters. The date of each acquisition, the nature of each transfer, the identity of the transferor, and whether the sale occurred in trade or commerce may all become legally important. In a dispute about reduction in value damages, the relevant purchase point and the state of knowledge at that time may also matter.

This case also shows the value of disciplined records. In a multi-owner product dispute, businesses may need to prove not only what was sold, but how, when and through whom it moved. That is especially true where a class action later expands to include additional owners over a long period.

This page reflects the Federal Court reasons in Capic v Ford Motor Company of Australia Pty Ltd (Supplementary Common Questions and Other Issues) [2026] FCA 38, dated 2 February 2026. The reasons clearly identify the dispute context, the statutory provisions in issue, the class action background, the sample-group-member quantification process and part of the Court's analysis on later-owner claims.

However, the available text ends before the Court's reasoning is complete. That means the final holdings on the successor in title issue, the multiple guarantees issue, any time-bar findings for later-added class members, and the exact position on crystallisation orders should be checked against the complete judgment and any entered orders before relying on them for a dispositive conclusion.