James Michael Leasing Co. v. PACCAR Inc.

904 F. Supp. 2d 953, 2012 WL 5839246, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 164715
CourtDistrict Court, E.D. Wisconsin
DecidedNovember 19, 2012
DocketCase No. 11-C-0747
StatusPublished

This text of 904 F. Supp. 2d 953 (James Michael Leasing Co. v. PACCAR Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. Wisconsin primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
James Michael Leasing Co. v. PACCAR Inc., 904 F. Supp. 2d 953, 2012 WL 5839246, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 164715 (E.D. Wis. 2012).

Opinion

DECISION AND ORDER

LYNN ADELMAN, District Judge.

In this diversity case, James Michael Leasing Company, LLC (“James Michael Leasing”) alleges that PACCAR, Inc., d/b/a Kenworth Truck Company (“PAC-CAR”) violated Wisconsin’s lemon law, Wis. Stat. § 218.0171. In August 2007, James Michael Leasing purchased a Ken-worth semitruck manufactured by PAC-CAR from PACCAR’s dealer in Milwaukee. The parties agree that the truck was a “lemon” and that the lemon law entitled James Michael Leasing to return the truck for a refund. The dispute in this case is over whether PACCAR complied with the lemon law in making the refund. The parties have filed cross-motions for summary judgment, which I consider below.

I. BACKGROUND

James Michael Leasing took delivery of the Kenworth truck from Wisconsin Ken-[955]*955worth, one of PACCAR’s dealers, on August 29, 2007. On June 7, 2011, James Michael Leasing served PACCAR with notice that it wanted to return the truck for a refund in accordance with Wisconsin’s lemon law. PACCAR agreed that the truck was a lemon and put Shawn Miller in charge of issuing a refund. On June 28, 2011, Miller advised Janie Kincaid, who handled the dispute on behalf of James Michael Leasing, that PACCAR would issue a refund, and that it had calculated the refund as follows:

(a) Purchase Price, including FET k $135,847.00
(b) Collateral Costs: $ 11,764.87
(c) Interest: $ 31,777.03
TOTAL: $179,388.90
Lien payoff through 6/30/11: $ 61,647.05
Remainder to James Michael Leasing: $117,741.85

The next day, Miller sent another email in which he stated that PACCAR would send two checks made out to James Michael Leasing to PACCAR’s Milwaukee dealership-one for the refund to James Michael Leasing, and one for the lien payoff. Miller stated that James Michael Leasing would be responsible for seeing that the lien was paid off, and that once it was James Michael Leasing should transfer title to the truck to PACCAR and return the truck to the Milwaukee dealership. Kincaid responded to Miller’s email and stated that she thought that the refund amount should be increased by $58, which represented the title fee that James Michael Leasing had paid when it purchased the truck. She also stated that James Michael Leasing did not want to be responsible for paying off the lien.

Miller responded to Kincaid’s email and agreed that the $53 title fee needed to be added to the refund. However, he reiterated that James Michael Leasing would be responsible for paying off the lien. In addition, Miller noted that the Wisconsin lemon law allows a manufacturer to deduct a reasonable allowance for use from the refund amount, and that PACCAR would thus reduce the refund by $3,751.24. Miller arrived at this number after reviewing the part of the Wisconsin lemon law stating that a reasonable allowance for use “may not exceed” the amount obtained by multiplying the “full purchase price of the motor vehicle” by a fraction, the denominator of which is 100,000, and the numerator of which is the number of miles the vehicle was driven before the consumer first reported a problem to the dealer. See Wis. Stat. § 218.0171(2)(b)2.b. Using this formula, Miller decided that the full purchase price was $121,952 (which was the purchase price as listed on the invoice, $135,847, less the federal excise tax of $13,895), and that the number of miles driven before James Michael Leasing reported a problem was 3,076. Thus, Miller’s calculation looked like this: $121,952 x (3076mi/100,000mi) = $3,751.24.

After Miller applied the title and reasonable-use adjustments, the refund amount became $114,043.61. Miller advised Kincaid that a check in that amount, along with a check in the amount of $61,868.30 for the lien payoff, could be delivered to James Michael Leasing on July 1, 2011. In response to this email, Kincaid stated that she would return the truck to the dealer on Tuesday, July 5, 2011, that the check should be delivered to her, but that she did not want to be- responsible for paying off the lien.

[956]*956On July 1, 2011, Mike Oswald, an employee of PACCAR’s Milwaukee dealership, traveled to James Michael Leasing’s offices to personally deliver the two checks. When he arrived, he presented Kincaid and Michael Smiley, the owner of James Michael Leasing, with the checks. Kincaid took the checks and made copies of them. At that point, Kincaid and Smiley informed Oswald that they would not accept the checks. According to Oswald, Kincaid and Smiley refused to accept the checks because they did not want to be responsible for paying off the lien. Oswald reported these events to Miller, and Miller instructed Oswald to re-offer a check in the amount of $114,043.61 to James Michael Leasing along with an assurance that PACCAR would pay off the lien directly. Oswald returned to James Michael Leasing’s offices later in the day on July 1 to do so. However, Kincaid again rejected the check, this time on the ground that the amount of the refund was incorrect. Kincaid did not explain to Oswald why she thought the refund amount was incorrect. Oswald again reported what had transpired to Miller, and Miller wrote an email to Kincaid in which he summarized the day’s events and asked her to explain why the refund amount was incorrect.

On July 5, 2011, Kincaid responded to Miller’s email and explained that the refund was incorrect because the deduction for reasonable use was excessive. Kincaid stated that she thought the deduction should be $364.26, which she calculated by multiplying the number of miles the truck had been driven before a problem was reported, which according to her was 3,061, by 11.9 cents per mile. Kincaid also stated that because no agreement had been reached as to the amount of the refund, James Michael Leasing would not be returning the truck to the dealer that day. Miller responded to Kincaid’s email by explaining that he had calculated the deduction for reasonable use in accordance with the formula that appears in the Wisconsin lemon law and asked Kincaid to reconsider. Kincaid responded by explaining that she thought that the formula produced a deduction that was too high. She stated that the denominator in the formula should be 1 million miles, rather than 100,-000 miles, which resulted in a reasonable-use deduction of $369.12.

On July 6, 2012, Miller wrote an email to Kincaid in which he stated that he had been informed that James Michael Leasing had returned the truck to the Milwaukee dealership. Miller stated that he understood this action to constitute an acceptance of PACCAR’s offer to issue a refund in the amount of $114,043.61. In response, Kincaid sent Miller the following email on July 7, 2011:

In good faith, we parked the truck at the dealer on Tuesday, July 5th, because I said we would go to the dealer on Tuesday with the truck. We expected you to pay us what we had coming.
The amount of $114,043.61 offered by [PACCAR] is not acceptable or agreeable. The mileage charge is too high. I made that clear in our last email as well as previous emails, including my email of July 5th.

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Bluebook (online)
904 F. Supp. 2d 953, 2012 WL 5839246, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 164715, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/james-michael-leasing-co-v-paccar-inc-wied-2012.