John Deere settlement leaves farmers weighing payment, repair rights
By Lindsey Langemeier, For The Fence Post
Questions remain about how compensation will be calculated and what farmers give up by participating
Farmers who have paid for repairs on qualifying John Deere agricultural equipment are beginning to receive notices about a $99 million class-action settlement. The notices, sent by mail and email starting Aug. 28, explain who may be eligible for compensation and outline four options for responding.
This settlement is part of In re Deere & Company Repair Services Antitrust Litigation, which is a separate right-to-repair class action lawsuit brought against the company by a group of farmers earlier in 2022. It includes a cash fund for repair services and a requirement for Deere to make repair and diagnostic tools available to farmers and independent repair shops on fair and reasonable terms for 10 years. The settlement remains subject to final court approval.
But understanding these notices, particularly what the options mean and what the settlement could be worth, may take some work.
John Hansen, president of the Nebraska Farmers Union, said the complexity of the settlement and the timeline for responding may make it difficult for farmers to fully evaluate their options.
“Given when these notices are being mailed and the time of year, farmers are going to be really busy ahead of this first deadline and it’s unfortunate we don’t have a three-month extension for more time,” Hansen said.
Part of that complexity comes from how the settlement’s cash payments will be calculated. Payments will be allocated based on dealer labor hours billed on a farmer’s qualifying machines, not by dollars spent on repairs. And while filing a claim is the only way to receive money, farmers who remain in the class will be bound by the settlement’s release of claims.
Willie Cade, a consultant with Graceful Solutions who has worked on right-to-repair issues and has been helping farmers understand the settlement, said the information available to farmers may not make the decision any easier.
“It’s clear as mud,” Cade said. “Farmers, when they’re making their decisions, will have to rely on the judge to determine whether the settlement is fair.
WHO IS ELIGIBLE?
The settlement class includes individuals and businesses that purchased diagnosis, maintenance or repair services for qualifying John Deere large agricultural equipment from an authorized dealer in the U.S. between Jan. 10, 2018, and May 18, 2026. Government entities are excluded.
Covered equipment includes certain 6000, 7000, 8000 and 9000 Series tractors, combines, cotton pickers and strippers, sugarcane harvesters, tillage equipment, seeding and planting equipment, application equipment and sprayers. Eligibility does not depend on whether a farmer still owns the equipment.
Farmers who receive a notice, which include a “Notice ID” and “Confirmation Code” can review the prepopulated information provided by Deere, eligibility requirements and settlement details at DeereRepairSettlement.com or contact the settlement administrator at 1-844-644-4294.
HOW PAYMENTS ARE CALCULATED
The settlement includes $99 million, plus interest. From that amount, the court may approve up to $45 million in attorney fees and up to $6 million in settlement costs. Seven class representatives may each receive a $25,000 service award, with additional expenses for administration and other settlement costs.
The estimated amount remaining for class members is $45 to $48 million, to be distributed among a class that includes more than 200,000 members.
But because payments will be allocated proportionally according to dealer labor hours and not the total dollars a farmer spent on repairs, Cade said this could make the payment calculation difficult for farmers to verify.
“Tying recovery to dealer labor hours is not commonly known,” Cade said. “Labor hours may not be readily apparent on invoices and farmers may be more accustomed to seeing the total cost of a repair on an invoice than the number of labor hours recorded for that repair.”
The settlement administrator is expected to provide farmers with the hours attributed to their equipment, but Cade questioned whether farmers would have enough information to confirm those figures. Repairs covered by an extended warranty for which a farmer paid are included in the calculation, while repairs performed under Deere’s factory warranty are not. Parts markups are also excluded from the payment formula, yet a farmer who stays in the class releases any parts overcharge claim along with everything else.
“If they give the farmer the hours that’s on their database, there’s no way for the farmer to validate whether John Deere’s database is accurate or not,” Cade said.
Cade said he has worked with farmers to compare their invoices with Deere’s records and has found discrepancies, including invoices that did not appear in the database and entries for which he could not find corresponding invoices for that farmer.
To help explain how the payment formula works, Cade shared this hypothetical example: If a farmer were credited with 350 eligible labor hours out of a total of 35 million hours, and the distributable fund were $50 million, the farmer’s share would be about $500. That works out to roughly $1.50 per eligible hour. This example is not an estimate of what farmers will receive as the actual payment will depend on the total amount available for distribution, the total qualifying labor hours represented by valid claims and each farmer’s qualifying labor hours.
Hansen said that what we know is the proposed settlement to farmers is about 9 cents per acre for eight years of monopolistic repair practices. Is that a fair offer? He said he would pull the last eight years of farm repair cost invoices and think about if, based on acres farmed and repair costs, does 79 cents per acre cover the amount of suspected overcharges, lost work time, and potential yield losses? For Hansen, he believes gathering even more farmers’ invoices is important to understanding how the settlement’s calculations compare with farmers’ actual experiences, though.
“We need more examples of what the invoices actually are because based on ones we’ve seen there’s a disparity between what farmers’ own receipts show and what John Deere provides,” Hansen said. “John Deere is using an unusual way to measure repair costs that is not measured in dollars. When the company is using a different measuring system than their customers, confusion will be the outcome.”
FOUR OPTIONS AND IMPORTANT DEADLINES
“The settlement notice presents four options, but the wording is confusing,” Cade said. “Essentially, nobody is required to accept this offer. A farmer can just say ‘no.'” Here are the four options for class members, and each has different consequences for receiving payment and retaining the ability to pursue claims:
Do nothing. Farmers who take no action will not receive a cash payment, but will remain part of the settlement and be bound by the judgment and release of claims covered by it. They will still receive the repair-tool relief automatically if they pay the annual fee per machine.
“If you do nothing, you get nothing,” Cade said, explaining that class members who take no action also give up rights to pursue released claims in the future.
File a claim. Submitting a claim by Dec. 31, 2026, is the only way to receive a cash payment. Farmers who file a claim remain in the settlement and agree to the release of covered claims.
Opt out. Farmers who opt out by Dec. 4, 2026, will not receive money from the settlement but will not be bound by its release. Opting out preserves the ability to pursue an individual claim or join another class action suit, subject to applicable law. Requests must be made individually and postmarked by the deadline; group opt-outs are not allowed.
Object. Farmers who remain in the settlement can submit an objection by Dec. 4, 2026, to raise concerns about the settlement, payment allocation, attorney fees or other terms. They may still file a claim while objecting, as claiming and objecting are compatible. However, opting out and objecting are not compatible options.
Cade said the distinction between claiming and objecting is important: a farmer can seek a payment while also telling the court what they disagree with. He also urged farmers to read the release carefully and understand which claims would be given up by remaining in the class.
The deadlines have changed from earlier information about the settlement, so farmers who have previously reviewed the case should check the current notice or settlement website for the most up-to-date dates. The opt-out and objection deadline is Dec. 4, two weeks before the plaintiffs’ final approval brief is scheduled to be filed Dec. 18. The claim deadline is Dec. 31. A fairness hearing is scheduled for Jan. 19, 2027, at 10 a.m. in Rockford, Ill. This is an open hearing and all are welcome to attend.
Farmers with significant repair expenses or concerns about preserving an individual claim may want to consult their own attorney before deciding how to respond.
WHY REPAIR ACCESS MATTERS
This settlement is part of a broader effort to expand farmers’ ability to repair their own equipment and use independent repair businesses.
“The cost of replacing and repairing farm equipment has gone up far faster than the price of inflation for many years. With today’s ag commodity prices, farmers cannot afford to replace equipment, so affordable and fairly priced repair costs become increasingly important,” Hansen said. “Access to manuals, diagnostic tools and tools and parts on an equal footing with dealers means independent repair businesses can help fill service gaps, giving farmers more options when a machine needs service.”
Hansen has seen many examples of how limited repair options have affected farmers when equipment is down. But Hansen said farmers may also be reluctant to speak publicly about repair issues because of their relationships with local dealerships. Some producers, he said, have told him they are uncomfortable getting crosswise with a dealer they rely on for service. “As an example, one farmer’s tractor was out of service for nearly a year after repeated attempts to fix a clutch problem,” he said. “The farmer had to lease another tractor during that time and ultimately paid $37,000 to get the original machine out of the shop. What is your time worth per hour when you’re down? It’s worth a lot.”
Separately, the settlement’s repair-tool relief requires Deere to make tools available to farmers and independent repair shops on fair and reasonable terms for 10 years. This relief applies automatically to class members and does not require a claim form. The plaintiffs’ expert estimated the value of the tool-related relief at $293.9 million to $648 million, though the court has not adopted that estimate. Cade also noted that a separate Federal Trade Commission case already includes repair and diagnostic tool provisions. He questioned how much additional benefit the settlement’s repair-tool provisions would provide beyond those requirements.
For farmers receiving notices, the immediate action is to understand the options and deadlines, review the information provided about their repair history and consider what rights they may be giving up.
“If you are unhappy with the lack of coompetition in farm equipment repairs we face today, this is an opportunity to do something about it for both today, and especially for tomorrow,” Hansen said. “Overall, we think the more farmers who reject the settlement and keep their future damages options open, the more likely it is that we can force more remedy and more competition back into farm equipment repairs.”
Cade said that at the end of the day, “If a postcard about the John Deere repair settlement recently arrived in your mailbox or inbox, don’t ignore it or set it aside just yet. The most important thing to note is the first deadline of Dec. 4 and then the ultimate deadline, Dec. 31.”
SOURCE: theFencePost, October 9, 2026
