Griffin v. Rent-A-Center, Inc.

843 A.2d 393, 2004 Pa. Super. 29, 2004 Pa. Super. LEXIS 106
CourtSuperior Court of Pennsylvania
DecidedFebruary 12, 2004
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 843 A.2d 393 (Griffin v. Rent-A-Center, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Superior Court of Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Griffin v. Rent-A-Center, Inc., 843 A.2d 393, 2004 Pa. Super. 29, 2004 Pa. Super. LEXIS 106 (Pa. Ct. App. 2004).

Opinions

OPINION

PER CURIAM:

¶ 1 This appeal has been taken by appellants, Gregory and Filecia Griffin, from the Order which dismissed, with prejudice, their second amended class action complaint in response to the preliminary objections filed by appellee, Rent-A-Center. We reverse and remand.

¶ 2 This action was commenced when a class-action complaint was filed in the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County on December 20, 2000, which was served on Rent-A-Center on December 21, 2000. The action was removed to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania on January 11, 2001, by Rent-A-Center but was subsequently remanded by the district court by order dated March 18, 2002. Thereafter, appellants, pursuant to the agreement of ■ all counsel, filed a second amended class-action- complaint which removed all references to the Rental-Purchase Agreement Act (“RPAA”) and substituted references to the Goods and Services Installment Sales Act (“GSISA”) in their stead. Appellee Rent-A-Center filed timely preliminary objections to the second amended complaint, requesting dismissal of the complaint on the grounds that:

(1) The GSISA was inapplicable to the transaction which was, in fact, subject to the RPAA; and
(2) The count under Section 201-2(4)(xxi) of the Unfair Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Law (“UTPCPL”) failed to state a cause of action as plaintiffs had not “alleged all of the elements of common-law fraud under Pennsylvania law.”

¶3 The trial court dismissed plaintiffs’ second amended complaint with prejúdice after concluding that the underlying transaction was, contrary to the holding of the Court of Common Pleas in Anoushian v. Rent-Rite, Inc., No. 2679, November Term, 2001 (2002 WL 1023438), governed by the Rental-Purchase Agreement Act (“RPAA”), 42 Pa.C.S. §§ 6901 et seq. rather than the Goods and Services Installment Sales Act (“GSISA”), 69 P.S. §§ 1101 et seq. Appellants timely filed the instant appeal from the order since the order dismissed their complaint without leave to amend.

¶ 4 Preliminary objections in the nature of a demurrer may only be sustained where, taking all well pleaded fac[395]*395tual averments in the complaint and all inferences fairly deducible therefrom as true, the law says with certainty that no recovery is possible. Pennsylvania is a fact pleading rather than a notice pleading jurisdiction. As a result, “courts are presumed to know the law and plaintiffs need only plead facts constituting the cause of action and the courts will take judicial notice of the statute involved.” Heinly v. Commonwealth, 153 Pa.Cmwlth. 599, 621 A.2d 1212, 1215 n. 5 (1993) (emphasis supplied). “The plaintiff is not required to specify the legal theory ... underlying the complaint.” Milton S. Hershey Medical Center v. Commonwealth Medical Professional Liability Catastrophe Loss Fund, 763 A.2d 945, 952 (Pa.Cmwlth.2000), aff'd., 573 Pa. 74, 821 A.2d 1205 (2003). Accord: Schnupp v. Port Authority, 710 A.2d 1235, 1239 (Pa.Cmwlth.1998); Pennsylvania State Troopers Ass’n v. Pennsylvania State Police, 667 A.2d 38, 41 n. 6 (Pa.Cmwlth.1995), appeal denied, 544 Pa. 617, 674 A.2d 1078 (1996) (“In civil actions where the facts in a complaint constitute the cause of action, the plaintiff need not specify the statute that the plaintiff contends defendant violated. The plaintiff need only allege the material facts which form the basis of a cause of action that raise a violation of that provision.”) See also: Burnside v. Abbott Laboratories, 351 Pa.Super. 264, 505 A.2d 973, 980 (1985), appeal denied, (1986).

¶ 5 The plaintiffs in the instant case set forth the following facts in their complaint: 1

4.The Plaintiffs had been, prior to the events described herein, customers of the Defendant for several years, having purchased a stereo, a refrigerator, a picture, a washing machine, and a computer from the Defendant. In each instance, the Plaintiffs ultimately purchased the items in issue, after having been given an allowance of the full amounts paid as rentals towards the purchase prices of the items.
5. On August 20,1999, and January 15, 2000, the Plaintiffs entered into then-most recent contracts with the Defendant, which involved, respectively, a bedroom set and a used computer. Copies of the contracts by which the Plaintiffs acquired the items in question are attached hereto as Exhibits “A” and “B”, respectively.
6. The contracts at issue contain several disclosures regarding their payment terms and a Notice that the Plaintiffs are only leasing the property in bold print in designated boxes, and the rest of the terms in smaller, lighter print. The contact forms [sic] were printed out of line, obliterating some of the figures with printing and making it very difficult to match a particular disclosure with a particular number. The figures which are legible appear to indicate that the Defendant’s so-called “Cash Prices” of these items are $1767.00 and $2079.50, which constitute an unconscionably excessive prices [sic] for such merchandise. The contract for the computer also erroneously designates that item as “new” when it in fact was used. However, the total of payments due under the first of these contracts appears to be $3237.51 if the items are paid over a term of 104 weeks, and the total of payments due under the second of these contracts appears to be $3842.04 if this item is paid over a term of 24 weeks.
[396]*3967. The Plaintiffs did not carefully examine these contracts when they received them, and logically assumed that the terms would be approximately the same as those of their prior contracts with the Defendant. Specifically, they assumed that all of their rental payments resulting in excessive prices for the goods in issue as it was, would be credited towards the purchase prices.
8. In June, 2000, the Plaintiffs requested a statement from the Defendant as to how much they owed to the Defendant to purchase each of the items in question. At this time, they learned for the first time that the Defendant intended to give them credit for their full rental payments against the purchase prices of the items for only those payments made in the first ninety days after the contracts were executed, and credit for only half of the rental payments made thereafter. Moreover, the Defendant faded to credit several of their payments towards the balances at all, since their balances did not . appear to be going down. Furthermore, the Defendant was unable to give them a precise figure as to how much they did owe and repeatedly informed them that it could not do so because their files were “missing.”
9.

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Griffin v. Rent-A-Center, Inc.
843 A.2d 393 (Superior Court of Pennsylvania, 2004)

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Bluebook (online)
843 A.2d 393, 2004 Pa. Super. 29, 2004 Pa. Super. LEXIS 106, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/griffin-v-rent-a-center-inc-pasuperct-2004.