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Anatomy of a Consumer Fraud Case   

A client comes into my office after having bought a used vehicle from a local dealership. The dealership advertised the vehicle on its website as “dead new,” though the car had 1500 miles on it. The client had picked up the car on a rainy evening in the middle of winter and had no reason to believe that the vehicle had any defects much less had been involved in a collision or some type of loss. The only representations made to the client were that vehicle was practically “new”. Within a few months the client notices that the paint was peeling from certain areas of the vehicle. Upon further inspection he noticed that his attempt to remove a decal on the vehicle showed that the decal had been painted over with clear coat. At that point the client suspected that there was a problem so he returned with the vehicle to the dealership.

Upon return to the dealership the client left the car for repairs and was told to return for the vehicle in a week. He did so and picked up the vehicle only to find less than stellar repairs. At this point he brought the vehicle to a local body shop and was told his suspicions were correct and that it did appear there had been substantial less than adequate  repairs and that there was additional paint on the car in excess of manufacturer standards. He obtained an estimate for the repairs and was advised that it would cost him approximately $4000 to have the vehicle repaired to industry standards (though obviously not to factory manufacturer standards). It was at this point that he sought legal counsel. 

The client contacted my office and related the above story to me. We set up an inspection with a local expert who obtained a statement from my client and inspected the vehicle and determined the loss in value of the vehicle due to the unexplained loss. We notified the dealership and when we heard no response from the dealership we promptly filed suit requesting consequential damages, treble damages (three times damages as called for in the Consumer Fraud Act), costs of suit, attorney fees, interest and all other amounts as deemed fair by the court. Upon filing of the complaint in the Superior Court of New Jersey it was served on the defendant dealership whereupon a very quick response was forthcoming from the dealership.

 

This case was ultimately settled with the dealership within approximately 60 days of the client signing a retainer agreement with my office. The responsibility and the egregious nature of the dealerships acts warranted a quick response and quite frankly every bit of the settlement and an apology from the defendant. The settlement was quick due to the very real consequences of the defendant’s failure to resolve the matter amicably. If this matter were not resolved quickly my time clock would have kept ticking and all my counsel fees would have been added onto the final resolution of the case-even if our resolution would have been for a fraction of our eventual settlement. The courts and the case law and statute behind it frown on a consumer being taken advantage of. In fact the law was arguably designed to address this very type of case. The statute, by its terms, encourages the quick resolution of cases by means of forcing a defendant to pay for all attorneys fees of a successful plaintiff. The statute will even pay attorneys fees in the event of a nominally successful plaintiff.

The lesson to be learned from this case is to always CYA (cover your butt), and to disclose, disclose, disclose. If you are selling used cars and the car has had a loss, even a slight loss, disclose it. If you are a body shop and need to get authorization to start your repairs do so via email, fax or personally signed authorization. Cutting corners or doing less that high quality work will always come back to haunt you.

Post script to the above mentioned case- the client used the settlement to have his car repaired at the body shop of his choice and everyone left happy-including the attorney and presumably the dealership as they could have been hit a lot harder than they actually were. Post-post script- the client’s son took the vehicle out and proceeded to wrap the vehicle around a telephone pole approximately 30 days prior to the settlement and was a cause of the rather quick resolution of the case. So much for my early retirementJ!