Clark Motor Co. v. Manufacturers & Traders Trust Co.

360 F. App'x 340
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Third Circuit
DecidedJanuary 7, 2010
DocketNo. 08-4831
StatusPublished

This text of 360 F. App'x 340 (Clark Motor Co. v. Manufacturers & Traders Trust Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Clark Motor Co. v. Manufacturers & Traders Trust Co., 360 F. App'x 340 (3d Cir. 2010).

Opinion

OPINION OF THE COURT

FISHER, Circuit Judge.

Clark Motor Company, Inc. (“Clark Motor”) and its officers, Robert and David Clark, appeal from an order of the District Court granting summary judgment to Manufacturers and Traders Trust Company (“M & T”). See Clark Motor Co., Inc. v. Manufacturers and Traders Trust, Co., No. 4:07-CV-856 (M.D.Pa. Nov. 20, 2008). Clark Motor filed suit claiming damages for breach of contract, negligent misrepresentation, negligence, breach of fiduciary duty, and aiding and abetting breach of fiduciary duty. We will affirm.

I.

We write exclusively for the parties, who are familiar with the factual context and legal history of this case. Therefore, we will set forth only those facts necessary to our analysis.

In June 2003, Clark Motor entered into an agreement with M & T for a floor plan line of credit. Under the agreement, M & T provided financing for Clark Motor’s purchase of new, used, and program vehicles. When Clark Motor purchased a vehicle, it would enter information, including the vehicle identification number (‘WIN”) and the vehicle’s purchase price, into M & T’s Dealer Access System (“DAS”). M & T would then deposit funds for the purchase of the vehicle into Clark Motor’s checking account to allow for the purchase of the vehicle. After the vehicle was sold to a customer, Clark Motor would repay M & T with interest.

Clark Motor was owned by brothers Robert and David Clark. Robert Clark was the President and majority owner of Clark Motor, while David Clark was its minority owner and Vice-President. In July 2001, Clark Motor hired Sally Smith (“Smith”) to serve as office manager. Smith had been previously employed by Mifflin County Coalition to Prevent Teen Pregnancy (“Coalition”) and Lazer Pro Digital Media Group (“Lazer Pro”). (Appellant Br. at 7.) On January 8, 1999, Smith pleaded guilty to charges of fraudulently endorsing checks payable to the Coalition. Later, on May 14, 2001, Smith pleaded guilty to 22 counts of forgery, theft, and receiving stolen property relating to actions she took at Lazer Pro. (J.A. A237-240.)

No one at Clark Motor was aware of Smith’s criminal record when she was hired. Robert Clark became aware of Smith’s criminal past, at the latest, on February 10, 2003, when a restitution order was served on Clark Motor requiring it to deduct money from Smith’s salary.

Notwithstanding Smith’s history, Clark Motor gave Smith the pin number to the DAS after it entered into its agreement with M & T. Smith was therefore able to enter new and used cars into the system and cause funds to be transferred from the line of credit to Clark Motor’s checking account.

All parties agree that Smith acted fraudulently in her use of the DAS. Beginning in 2005, using information from a separate Chrysler Dealer Information System, Smith entered new vehicles into the DAS which were owned by other dealers. Smith also overvalued used cars, inflating the amount Clark Motor paid for those [343]*343vehicles. All told, Smith entered over 35 new vehicles into the DAS that were never owned by Clark Motor. This fraud caused M & T to loan Clark Motor some $1.5 million more than it otherwise would have in order to fund Clark’s purchases.

The parties agree that Smith used roughly $100,000 of the fraudulently loaned money herself. While M & T asserts in its brief that the most likely scenarios are that the remaining $1.4 million was either taken by Robert and/or David Clark or used to cover Clark Motor’s operating losses, there is little by way of evidence in the record to show what happened to the remaining funds.

The agreement authorized M & T to audit Clark Motor’s inventory. M & T did carry out audits of Clark Motor’s inventory, but Clark Motor argues on appeal that these audits should have been more detailed. When performing an audit, M & T would check each vehicle entered into the DAS against the vehicles on the lot. When vehicles were missing from the lot, auditors would seek an explanation from Smith. There were several legitimate reasons why a vehicle might appear on the list for financing but not be physically present on Clark Motor’s lot at the time of the audit. Some vehicles were loaned by Robert Clark to his family and to other individuals. Other vehicles had been ordered from other dealers but had not yet arrived or had been taken by customers before Clark Motor remitted payment to M & T.

On December 19, 2006, M & T and Clark Motor executed a new agreement for financing with a substantially increased fine of credit. Smith’s fraud was subsequently uncovered in January 2007.

II.

The District Court had jurisdiction over this matter pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1332. This Court has jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We review a District Court’s order granting summary judgment de novo applying the same standard as the District Court. Alcoa, Inc. v. United States, 509 F.3d 173, 175 (3d Cir.2007). Summary judgment is appropriate only where there is no genuine issue of material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Saldana v. Kmart Corp., 260 F.3d 228, 232 (3d Cir.2001).

We exercise plenary review over the District Court’s interpretation of state law. Chem. Leaman Tank Lines, Inc. v. Aetna Cas. & Sur. Co., 89 F.3d 976, 983 (3d Cir.1996).

III.

The District Court entered summary judgment for M & T. On appeal, Clark Motor claims that there were genuine issues of material fact with regards to several of its claims. Before the District Court, Clark Motor raised five claims, two of which, the breach of contract and negligent misrepresentation claims, are at issue in this appeal. We will consider each of the plaintiffs’ claims in turn.

A.

A plaintiff alleging breach of contract under Pennsylvania law must prove the existence of a contract between the parties, a breach of a duty imposed by the contract, and resulting damages. Ware v. Rodale Press, Inc., 322 F.3d 218, 225 (3d Cir.2003); see also CoreStates Bank, N.A. v. Cutillo, 723 A.2d 1053, 1058 (Pa.Super.Ct.1999). There is no dispute that the parties had a contract, so we will consider whether the contract was breached.

Clark Motor claims that M & T breached the contract by funding its loan requests without proper documentation, failing to properly conduct required audits, breaching the duty of good faith and fair [344]*344dealing, and providing loans in excess of the maximum amount set by the agreement.

We first consider whether the use of the DAS complied with the agreement’s documentation requirements. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has stated that course of performance can be “perhaps the strongest indication of what the writing means.”

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Bluebook (online)
360 F. App'x 340, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/clark-motor-co-v-manufacturers-traders-trust-co-ca3-2010.