5 states may intervene in Honda hybrid case

SAN DIEGO — A judge on Tuesday granted California and four other states more time to consider objecting to a class-action settlement between Honda Motor Co. and car owners over inflated fuel- efficiency claims about the automaker’s hybrid vehicles.

The states’ sudden interest in the proposed settlement came shortly after Honda owner Heather Peters won $9,867 in small- claims court — much more than the couple hundred dollars cash the settlement is offering.

Attorneys general in California, Iowa, Massachusetts, Texas and Washington asked last week — only two days before the deadline — for more time to consider the settlement with about 200,000 Honda owners.

Albert Shelden, a California deputy attorney general, acknowledged to reporters that Peters’ victory this month in a Los Angeles court caught the attention of authorities.

“From a number of different sources, other questions have been raised,” he said. “Everything figures in.”

California has not decided whether to enter the fray and, if it did, on what grounds it would object, Shelden said. The amount of the offer would be among the questions it considers.

“We’re going to look at the whole settlement,” he said.

Peters opted out of the class-action lawsuit so she could try to claim a larger damage award for the failure of her 2006 Honda Civic to deliver the 50 mpg that was promised.