A Class Action (10 page)

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Second, those big Suburbans he’s been specializing on at that dealership for the past several years are the exact same models used by the Treasury Department in the Presidential motor caravan. They usually carry a Secret Service detail and the group of reporters who fly with the President on Air Force One. Sometimes the President actually rides in one of the Suburbans, while a decoy rides in the Presidential limo, but that information is never released, so I’d appreciate your discretion.

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Thirdly, his experience as a Navy Seal means he can rig explosives, and the past month demonstrates that he knows his stuff.

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He probably didn’t intend to kill those two women, but explosives are funny things some-times, and now that they’re dead, he’s stuck with that too. Our experts tell us that those explosions were just practice. He was rehearsing for the real thing.”

With an imagination like that, he should be working at the studios writing screenplays. I’ve heard of a ‘stretch’ before, but this one is gigantic.

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That’s a nice theory, Snell, but you and I both know that vehicles in the Presidential motorcade are all flown in by military transport planes in advance of Air Force One. They’re maintained by the Secret Service and never get near the dealership where my client works. How do you think he was going to pull this assassination off?”

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You’re right. They are flown in, but we can’t ignore the coincidence that he makes three vehicles identical to the Secret Service cars explode. Some way, some how, we believe he and whatever group he’s working with planned to either get a Trojan horse into the motorcade or sabotage one of the existing motorcade vehicles. And by the way, the dealership he works at actually is on the list of approved dealerships, should one of the Secret Service Suburbans need emergency repairs. It all ties in too close together. We can’t ignore this one – there’s too much involved here to be a series of coincidences – the odds are too great against it.”

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I hear you Snell, but if my memory serves me correctly, during the last century, a couple pulled off a robbery. They were described as being a black male and a blond white female, and they were seen driving off in a pink Cadillac convertible.

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Later that day, a black male and a blond white female were stopped. They were driving a pink Cadillac convertible. The police searched the trunk of their car and found the stolen goods. They wound up getting convicted.”

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That’s a nice story Sharp, but what could it possibly have to do with this case?”

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They appealed their conviction on the grounds that there was no probable cause to arrest them. The police testified that they searched the vehicle because the odds against a couple matching that specific description and driving a pink Cadillac convertible were too great to ignore, so they stopped the vehicle and searched it. And you know what? The Appellate Court agreed with the defendants. They held that the conviction should be reversed, because the police shouldn’t be working on a system of odds. They’re not in the gambling business, they’re supposed to enforce the law. So forget about the odds against coincidence…you’ve got to have some definite proof.”

Our discussion ends like so many do. There was no right or wrong, because things in the law are not that black and white. He still believes he saved the President’s life, and I still believe he’s making a big mistake. There’s no way we can settle the difference between us. That’s what courts and juries are for.

Joe will be arraigned in the Federal Court and it looks like we’ll have to take this one all the way to trial.

Jack couldn’t find anything out about any company named I.R.S. in New Jersey. I call Stuart to ask how he pays for the cars, figuring that the best thing to do is follow the money. Stuart tells me that he’s instructed to have cashier’s checks made out directly to the insurance company, giving us another dead end. Could this mean that I.R.S. is a division of the insurance company? I don’t think so. That would be a big conflict of interest, and the New Jersey Insurance Commission wouldn’t let them get away with it.

A few more phone calls to the insurance company only gives us the name of their I.R.S. contact, who is the same guy named Billy who Jack met with when he was in New Jersey pretending to be a prospective customer.

Here in California there’s a Department of Motor Vehicle regulation requiring people who sell more than a specific number of vehicles in any twelve-month period to have a dealer’s license. That way their actions can be monitored and the public protected. But there are a lot of people here who get around that rule by doing what we call ‘passing the pink.’ The free and clear title to automobiles in California at one time was printed on pink paper, so even though the colors have changed over the years, the nickname of ‘pink slip’ still is used.

The way that hustlers maneuver around being required to get a license is by never registering the vehicles in their own name. They buy a car from someone, have that seller sign off on the pink slip, but leave the date blank. They then keep the signed pink slip in a safe place until they find a customer for the car. The new customer takes the pink slip to get it registered, and because the original owner signed off on it, the DMV treats it as a direct sale from the original owner to the new buyer. The middleman’s name never appears anywhere – all he does is pass the pink from his seller to his buyer.

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.

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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 where 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.