A Class Action

by Gene Grossman

  If I.R.S. is doing the same thing in New Jersey, it could be a reason why they don’t appear to exist. I tell Jack to contact New Jersey’s Vehicle Registration Department to find out what the rules are there.

  Stuart never fails to amaze me. He owns two armored trucks and his warehouse usually has at least five or six Camrys or Accords for sale. But that apparently isn’t enough rolling stock for him, so he decided to go out and buy himself a brand new Lincoln Town Car for his own personal use. That must be the one that Olive was referring to earlier.

  This subject hasn’t come up in our recent conversations because I think he’s worried that if people knew about this new acquisition, he might be thought of as a person who is into excessive conspicuous consumption, like so many other people in Southern California. When I ask what prompted him to expand his fleet, his answer is quite reasonable. “I want a car that’s comfortable to sit in. The armored trucks are out of the question, and for some reason, I don’t find the Toyotas, Altimas or Hondas the right fit for me, so I shopped all over town and sat in every model until I found one that fit just right.” He asked me what I would be riding in if I were a multi-millionaire.

  That’s an easy one to answer. “A back seat.” He accepts my answer and goes on to say that the reason he’s calling now to tell me about his new car is because he’s having some problems with it that the dealer can’t seem to fix properly. He’s afraid he’s stuck with a ‘lemon.’

  This can be a fate worse than death for someone who is really into cars. You keep bringing it back to the dealer with the same complaints, they keep telling you the problems have been taken care of, and you discover that the car is exactly the same as it was before you brought it in. Stuart’s main problem is that the gas gauge doesn’t accurately show how much fuel the car has. Sometimes a full tank will show as completely empty, or visa versa. This can be a real pain in the neck, and Stuart wants very much to have it fixed. After the third time at the dealer, they claim to have installed a completely new sensing device. When Stuart filled up the tank and took it for a test drive, the needle did a nosedive towards empty. Now he’s beside himself with disappointment and wants me to do something for him.

  They never gave us a lecture about automobile lemons at the unaccredited night law school I attended. Well, maybe they did, but I wasn’t there that night. Therefore, the only answer available to brilliant legal researchers like me is the Internet… and I’m not disappointed. After less than an hour of surfing, I’ve become an expert in the field and tell Stuart that if he wants to buy me dinner at the Charthouse, I’ll give him all the legal advice he can handle. It’s a deal.

  During dinner, I let him know something he may have suspected for some time – that I’m good for nothing. What I actually mean to tell him is that it probably won’t cost him anything for me to represent him in this matter because the California Lemon Law includes a provision for the claimant to recover most of his legal fees. And, if we’re successful, the dealer will either have to refund his purchase money or replace the car with another one.

  “That’s great Pete, but what happens to the car they get back from me? Does some other sucker get stuck with it when they re-sell it?”

  Good question. The law also provides for returned lemons to have their titles ‘branded,’ so that as long as the vehicle exists, it is identified as a ‘re-purchased lemon.’

  So far, so good. Stuart wants to get started with legal action against the dealer, but the dealer’s responsibility only goes as far as trying to fix the problems. When it comes to a purchase or exchange, that liability falls on the manufacturer, if the car qualifies as a lemon under the law. I tell him that for his car to officially be classified as a lemon, a couple of conditions must be met. First of all, within eighteen months of the purchase, the same defect must have been subject to repair at least four times – all with no success. They also require the problem to be a ‘material defect,’ but since Stuart’s problem substantially impairs the use, value or safety of his car, it qualifies there too.

  While we’re outside the restaurant waiting for the valet to bring Stuart’s car around, I can’t resist asking him. “Stuart, I received a credit reference request from a Las Vegas hotel. You’re not into gambling now, are you?”

  He laughs. “No Pete, but I do love those big buffet spreads they have up there, and in order to be invited to the real fancy ones, they want to believe that you’re a high roller, so I filled out a credit app to let them see that I’m a man of means.”

  This is all interesting. Stuart purchases a Lincoln Town Car, drives it to Las Vegas for buffet lunches, Vinnie is doing some hush-hush work on the car, and Stuart thinks it’s a lemon. Something is wrong with this picture, but I haven’t got the time or mental energy to work on it right now.

  I take Stuart’s car file back to the boat with me to prepare for the claim procedure but don’t plan on filing it immediately until I get some more questions answered. Aside from the fact that Stuart may be making a phony claim, this is a pleasant relief for me because on this case the only thing involved is a gas gauge. No one is in danger of going to jail or losing the family house. No one is being dragged into court for violation of an order, and there’s no hardship involved. It’s a piece of cake, and from what I’ve learned about these cases, there are more than fifty thousand of them every year… and that’s not counting motorcycles, RV’s, and mobile homes. Vehicle lemon claims are second in number only to home improvement complaints.

  I turn this matter over to our office manager and let her know that we won’t be spending a lot of time on this case because there are time limits involved. I also make a suggestion that our office staff have a heart-to-heart talk with Olive about the work on Stuart’s car that Vinnie’s been doing. If we do file a claim for Stuart, the manufacturer has 30 days to comply with our formal legal demand. Once we’ve accepted a satisfactory offer, it takes approximately another 15 to 30 days to return the vehicle and receive payment from the manufacturer. She grumbles an acceptance and takes the file.

  This is a strange set of circumstances. I admit to not being too good a driver, and am not particularly fond of automobiles, but just about everything I’ve gotten involved with for the past month or so has had something to do with vehicles. There was Olive not knowing how to drive, Shirley driving drunk, Olive crashing into a police car, three exploding Suburbans, a guy accused of making car bombs, Stuart’s allegedly legit used car operation, and now the lemon law. When all this stuff is over I think I’ll change my concentration over to yachts… you meet a higher class of people that way. Maybe I’ll even meet my neighbor George.

  *****

  Chapter 8

  During the past few days my email inbox has received some strange messages. Two were from local police agencies offering assistance if I need fingerprinting services – for a small fee. There was one from some casino in Las Vegas because Stuart used me as a credit reference. Another two were from organizations I never heard of with alphabets in their names, and more were congratulatory, welcoming me to the world of private schools.

  Every lawyer in the State of California, and probably in the other states too, has already been fingerprinted as part of the process required to take the state Bar Examination, so I don’t need that service. I do not attend any private school and don’t intend to, unless they start giving courses in how to improve one’s social life. I get the feeling that as usual, there’s something going on that’s being orchestrated by the kid – and when I find out, I’ll probably be told what to do because she’ll have had the entire plan all worked out. There’s no sense in asking her, because I won’t get an answer, so I figure the only way to find out what’s going on is to talk to one of the people that the kid talks to, which includes the entire world, except for me.

  I know she’s tutoring Stuart in his law classes, still coaching Olive on driving, helping Jack B. develop some computer skills, and teaching English to some of the employees at the Chinese restaurant whe
re she reigns supreme. She also spends hours each week on the telephone with Myra, talking about stuff in general. She’s probably talked more to Myra in the past seven weeks than I did during the seven years of our marriage. This situation requires a personal evening phone call.

  Bingo! I hit the jackpot on my first try. Not only is Myra home and willing to talk to me, she also knows most of the pertinent details, so I might not have to go any further in this investigation. The way she explains it, Suzi intends to be a lawyer, which is a nice ambition for a kid. The main difference between her and others her age with similar goals is that this kid is a genius and doesn’t intend to wait another ten years. As for those strange messages I received, in order for her home schooling to continue, she must be registered in a private school. Her stepfather filed the proper Private School Affidavit each year with California’s Superintendent of Public Instruction, but since he’s passed away and I’m her legal guardian, the responsibility of the annual October filing is now mine. That explains the email messages. The testing sites that I take her to occasionally are demanded, because her grades on the home-administered exams were so high that the idiots in charge of education now require her to take the tests in a proctored situation where they can make sure she doesn’t cheat. If they had half a brain, they’d realize that she’s already smarter now than they ever were. The rest of her plan involves passing the well known GED, a General Educational Development test that was created in 1942 during World War II to allow veterans to get a credential equivalent to a high school diploma, so that they could go on to college. It’s now available to all adults – and there’s the rub. In California, you have to be at least within sixty days of your eighteenth birthday in order to be eligible to take the test. The kid has figured out a way around that rule by talking to a company in the state of Maryland that specializes in preparing students to take the GED. They also administer the test, and their age requirement states that you can be under the age of eighteen, but you must have written permission from the principal of your school. It finally dawns on me that I’m being set up as the principal of her school, so she can fly to Maryland some afternoon, pay them five hundred dollars for the course that she didn’t take, and sail through their exam to get a high school equivalency certificate.

  This alone is a tremendous task she designed, but it doesn’t stop there. I see by the packages being delivered from Amazon.com that she’s now preparing for her Law School Admissions Test. The LSAT is a half-day standardized test required for admission to all of the 201 law schools that are members of the Law School Admission Council. It provides a standard measure of acquired reading and verbal reasoning skills that law schools can use as one of several factors in assessing the applicants. The test is administered four times a year at hundreds of locations around the world.

  Evidently, her research has determined that with a high school equivalent certificate and a high enough grade on the LSAT, she can get admitted to a law school – and if whatever small private law school she picks shows any hesitation in admitting her, she feels positive that a one-hundred thousand dollar donation to the school will sway their decision-making process. If she really wants to impress someone, all she has to do is show them how she spends her spare time working crossword puzzles in those Chinese newspapers she picks up at the restaurant. I like to work the ones in the TV Guide, so I know how hard they can be, but completing one in Chinese is something else. She always has some Asian newspaper under her arm when we go somewhere in the car, so she can catch up on current events during the trip. I guess she thinks it’s better than having a conversation with me.

  The State of California has some minimum age requirement for qualification to take the Bar Exam, but I’m sure the kid has some way figured out to pass another state’s exam and then get licensed here on the reciprocal rules our Bar has. If she pulls all of this off, I think I’ll be out of work in the next couple of years. I don’t care how smart she is, there’s a heck of a lot to learn in law school to pass the Bar exam, and she’ll have to spend the full three years doing it. That means I’ve got until she’s about fourteen years old before I get the axe from this law firm, but in the meantime I still have to drive her around if she wants to go more than the few blocks she dares to drive in her electric cart. And that’s exactly what I’m expected to do tomorrow afternoon, because she’s got another appointment toward the goal of her master plan.

  I see the dog getting ready for a ride. The kid is instructing him to behave in the car, so I guess he’s joining us today. Our trip will include dropping the Saint Bernard off at a grooming parlor for his bath and trim, while we go to her appointment. I’m told that I’ll have to wait about an hour for her while she breezes through some silly test they want her to take. I have a hunch that the test she’s taking today is one that they administer to children in grades five through twelve. According to some literature I saw lying around the boat, they allow five hours for this test, so that’s why she probably thinks it’ll take her almost a half hour. I bring some transcribed reports along to read while waiting. Sure enough, she returns to the car in less than forty-five minutes, leaving behind what I’m sure is a room full of stunned educators.

  On the way back to the grooming parlor my cell phone rings. It’s Eaton, the dealership’s general manager. He claims that it’s important and wants me to stop by the dealership. The cell phone is mounted on my dashboard and its speakerphone is on, so the kid hears the manager’s request and shrugs her shoulders – probably a signal to let me know that the dog won’t be ready for a while, so it’s okay to go to the dealership. As we pull up to where I’m supposed to meet Eaton, Suzi reaches into the glove box, removes the recorder, puts on a pair of headphones and hops into the back seat. It looks like while I’m talking to Eaton she plans on making notes for the next billing statement.

  Eaton gets into the car and looks toward the back seat. “Who’s that?”

  “She doesn’t bite… don’t worry about her.”

  “Well, I’d like to talk to you about the legal case against the dealership, and we might get into some private information.” He notices she’s sitting there with a set of earphones on, while reading a Chinese newspaper. “Does she speak English?” I don’t want to lie to him, but I also don’t want to ask her to get out of the Hummer – mainly because she probably wouldn’t. Instead, I try to get around the situation. “She lives on my dock and I was just taking her to an appointment. I haven’t heard her say anything in English to me today, so I guess that if you want to talk to her, you’ll have to learn Mandarin.”

  It probably is okay for her to be present if Eaton wants to talk about the dealership’s case, because technically, Suzi is part of my legal staff. I glance in the rear view mirror and notice that she’s flipping a switch on the recorder. Eaton is obviously satisfied that the kid is no risk to him. Anyone who doesn’t know better would think that even if she did speak English, any kid wearing earphones is probably more interested in whatever passes for music nowadays that’s going through the wire to her ears than anything that a couple of old guys might be talking about. “Sharp, I want you to tell me exactly where the insurance company is in its investigation of those Suburban explosions… especially the one that killed my dear wife and mother-in-law.”

  This takes me by surprise. I don’t blame him for being concerned about his loss, but it’s a little out of the ordinary for him to be confronting me like this.

  “Mister Eaton I turn my investigative reports over to my client. If you’re interested, you should contact the insurance defense firm or the detectives investigating the accident. Maybe they’ll help you out.”

  This isn’t good enough for him. He’s agitated at my reluctance to talk to him. “Listen Sharp, I’m part of this dealership, and you represent us in this whole explosion mess. And what’s more, the insurance company is paying you to represent Morgan, the defendant. I think you know more about the case than those others do.”

  “Well Mister Eaton, to
be quite honest, I don’t think that Joe Morgan is guilty of anything. In fact, the finger of guilt actually points more to you than to him.”

  This makes him start to go ballistic. I was afraid that the kid would get scared when he started to shout at me, but a glance in my mirror shows her to be working a crossword puzzle and ignoring us completely. Damn! I hope I never have to play poker with her.

  I think that Eaton doth protest too much at my accusation. I go on to explain that Joe Morgan really had no motive to kill anyone. He may not have been happy with the fact that his warranty scam was over, but that’s not a motive for murder. On the other hand, collecting on a million dollar life insurance policy is… and I tell Eaton that the insurance company informed me that he already put a claim in to collect for his wife’s death.

  There are certain times when you just can’t think as clearly as you’d like, and being cold, tired, jealous, hungry, under stress, in pain, or angry can definitely cause a mistake in judgment. In Eaton’s case, it’s rage.

  “Only a guy like Morgan could make that right front caliper go after that exact number of miles, and you’ll never be able to prove anything against me. And I know the conspiracy laws, so even if you think I’m involved with Morgan, without his testimony against me, there can’t be a conviction. Not just on a co-conspirator’s uncorroborated testimony.”

  I’m impressed that he claims to know so much about a law that means very little to most of the public. Before he storms out of the car, he lets out one last tirade. “Besides, you represent me and this dealership, so anything I’ve said to you here today is a privileged communication.” Then, his rage seems to cool down and with a grim smirk on his face he finishes up the conversation. “Six months from now, I’ll be on some beach in the south of France, so you can take your theories and you know what you can do with them. You’ll never be able to prove anything against me, and if you ever figure out what happened to my wife, I’m sure you’ll appreciate true brilliance.”