Vehicle Manufacturer Seeking Order To Prevent Further Customer Communications

Location: NJ

I purchased a luxury vehicle in mid-2024, and unfortunately the vehicle I purchased had a lot of problems from the get-go. I think some of these related to newer software that this vehicle was running (which clearly didn't have all the bugs ironed out of it). None of the problems were, by themself, a critical safety issue, but taken altogether there were enough problems that it significantly impacted my use of the vehicle and could have led to safety issues. I also paid a premium for a luxury vehicle, including additional for a higher-end model of the luxury vehicle.

Starting around mid-2024, I attempted to deal with these issues with the vehicle manufacturer (which is a big company). Over the course of the next year and a half, they were horrible to deal with. For the most part, they ignored most of my communication attempts. When I did receive responses, they ignored the majority of my concerns, and some of the responses were somewhat nonsensical. I was dealing with their customer relations team (and a manager on that team), and yet was getting absolutely no help or assistance despite repeatedly trying to deal with them in an above board and appropriate manner (at least from my thinking - I may have been a bit sarcastic in some of the later emails due to my exasperation and frustration with them, but was never vulgar or inappropriate).

At a certain point, I began to CC and BCC senior executives in these emails since I was getting no traction through normal channels. I also attempted to reach out numerous times via telephone to the manager in the customer relations team. My communication attempts with the senior executives went nowhere, and despite leaving numerous messages with the manager, they never returned my call (initially I had asked them via email multiple times for us to schedule a call and they ignored those requests as well).

Finally, with no other real option, I filed a lemon law suit (which I had never done before) dealing with one of the more major issues. I probably should have hired an attorney, but was afraid of throwing good money after bad, so I tried to handle it myself. The lawsuit is mostly winding down at this point (I'm awaiting a final decision from the Director of Consumer Affairs), but the administrative law judge's initial decision finds in favor of the vehicle manufacturer - so I'm not expecting much of a change in the final decision.

There were actually two hearings for the lemon law lawsuit, and during the time frame of the lawsuit I was also continuing to attempt to communicate with the vehicle manufacturer regarding all of the other issues that were still outstanding. At the end of the second hearing, the vehicle manufacturer's attorney asked the judge to instruct me to stop contacting the vehicle manufacturer. The gist of the judge's response (I think) was that the judge couldn't do that, and that I was still a customer of the vehicle manufacturer and might have need to reach out to them. The vehicle manufacturer's attorney had also emailed me prior to the second hearing telling me to stop reaching out to the vehicle manufacturer, but when I pushed back in my response about all of the outstanding issues and whether I should address them all to him, he never responded.

All of that brings us to the present - I got fed up with the vehicle manufacturer and a week or so ago sent the customer relations team (and the manager) a bunch of emails (each one dealing with a separate unresolved issue; though none of them dealt with the issue I brought forward in the lemon law suit). I then followed up a few times over the next few days, and then started including senior executives once more in my follow-ups (since, of course, I wasn't getting any response from the vehicle manufacturer).

Earlier today, I received an email from the vehicle manufacturer's attorney (also sent to the assistant of the administrative law judge (ALJ) that had previously communicated with us) requesting that the judge issue a protective order against me preventing me from communicating with the vehicle manufacturer going forward. Clearly, I am concerned since I have no idea what the repercussions of this type of action could mean for me; not to mention that I'm still a customer of the vehicle manufacturer.

A few things worth noting:

- As far as I can tell, I was never explicitly told by the vehicle manufacturer themselves or the attorney that I could no longer communicate with the vehicle manufacturer about anything at all.

- Aside from maybe 10-20 calls (resulting in voicemail messages) over an approximately 2-year period, as well as many, many emails, I have made no other attempts to "harass" the vehicle manufacturer directly (I use "harass" in quotations since that's what the attorney stated I was doing in their motion for the protective order)

- I'm not clear if state law even allows an ALJ to approve a protective order - I'd very much like to know this though

- I also believe that the jurisdiction has been transferred back to the Division of Consumer Affairs, and from what I could tell (with some online research), there is N.J.A.C. 1:1-18.1(h) that seems to indicate that the Office of Administrative Law (OAL) relinquishes jurisdiction of the case back to the Division of Consumer Affairs - so perhaps the ALJ doesn't have the ability to do anything anymore because of lack of jurisdiction - this is another thing I'd really like to figure out

- I would wonder whether or not there is any sort of potential breach of contract if I'm no longer able to communicate with the vehicle manufacturer and yet there are still important reasons to do so (roadside assistance, an extended warranty and maintenance plan that I purchased, online services that I have through the vehicle, etc.)

- all of the recent stuff I describe above (since the second hearing) has transpired over email, including the email I received earlier today requesting the judge issue the protective order. Would something like that need to be served to me physically, or would email suffice?

Anyway, sorry for the long post, and any help is greatly appreciated. I realize I am probably a small thorn in the side of the vehicle manufacturer, and perhaps I've gone a bit overboard with my attempts to get all of these issues resolved, but they clearly didn't seem to ever have any real interest in helping me based on how they initially responded to me and then started to just ignore me repeatedly - and after spending a lot of money on a vehicle with this many problems, I'm just extremely frustrated at this point.