Nave v. Community America Credit Union (In Re Nave)

303 B.R. 223, 2003 Bankr. LEXIS 1792, 2003 WL 23119836
CourtDistrict Court, D. Kansas
DecidedDecember 15, 2003
DocketBankruptcy No. 99-40928. Adversary No. 99-7085
StatusPublished

This text of 303 B.R. 223 (Nave v. Community America Credit Union (In Re Nave)) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Kansas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Nave v. Community America Credit Union (In Re Nave), 303 B.R. 223, 2003 Bankr. LEXIS 1792, 2003 WL 23119836 (D. Kan. 2003).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM OPINION

ROBERT E. NUGENT, Chief Judge.

This adversary proceeding comes before the Court on Cheryl Kay Nave’s (“Plaintiff’) supplemental motion for summary judgment on her adversary complaint alleging violations of the Truth in Lending Act (“TILA”) 1 and the Kansas Consumer Protection Act (“KCPA”) 2 as a result of TILA disclosures made by the Community America Credit Union (“Defendant”) in conjunction with two vehicles it financed. 3 Specifically, the Plaintiff contends that Defendant’s failure to include the amount of *224 premiums for credit life insurance and credit disability insurance in the “Amount Financed” constitutes a violation of TILA and is an unconscionable practice under the KCPA. The Defendant’s motion for summary judgment on the issue of recoupment is also before the Court. 4

Procedural Background and Findings of Fact

This matter is before the Court for a second time.

Plaintiff presented the following uncon-troverted facts by her first summary judgment motion. 5 Plaintiff entered into two car loans and security agreements on August 31, 1998. 6 One loan was secured by a 1992 Ford Explorer (“Ford loan”) and one loan was secured by a 1984 Chevrolet Sil-verado (“Chevy loan”). The Defendant made the following TILA disclosures concerning the Ford loan: Amount Financed — $11,657.40; Finance Charge' — ■ $3,588.92; Total Payments — $16,036.15; and Annual Percentage Rate (“APR”)— 13.25%. The Defendant made the following TILA disclosures concerning the Chevy loan: Amount financed — $5,858.62; Finance charge — $1,613.85; Total Payments — $7,768.44; and APR — 15.90%. Plaintiffs first payment under both the Ford loan and the Chevy loan was due October 15,1998.

For both the Ford loan and the Chevy loan Defendant included the amount of insurance premiums in the Total Payments figure and separately disclosed, outside the TILA disclosures box, the total amount of the respective insurance premiums. 7 The Plaintiff sued Defendant under § 1638(a)(2) of the TILA and Reg Z ¶ 226.18 for incomplete disclosure of the “Amount Financed” when the Defendant did not include all or part of the premiums for credit life insurance and credit disability insurance. It is conceded that the insurance premiums did not have to be disclosed as part of the Finance Charge because the Defendant satisfied the conditions for exclusion: (1) disclosure that the insurance was not required; (2) disclosure of the amount of the premium for the initial term of insurance coverage; and (3) Plaintiff elected the insurance. 8 It is also undisputed that the Plaintiff had the ability to cancel the insurance coverages at any time.

The Plaintiff moved for summary judgment on her complaint. 9 On this first summary judgment motion, Judge Pusa-teri ruled that he had insufficient facts to grant summary judgment and denied Plaintiffs motion. 10 This Court adopts Judge Pusateri’s findings of fact set out therein, except as supplemented below. He boiled the case down to whether Plaintiffs payment for the insurance coverage was in advance or in arrears. In other words, if the Plaintiff was going to pay premiums for insurance already provided, the Defendant had effectively “financed” *225 the insurance by deferring the Plaintiffs obligation to pay for it and that amount should have been included in the Amount Financed. If, however, the Plaintiff was paying for insurance in advance, then the Defendant was not deferring payment for a presently or previously received benefit and could not be said to be extending “credit.” In that event, the insurance premiums would not be included in the Amount Financed. Because Judge Pusa-teri could not determine from the record before him whether the insurance premiums were to be paid in advance or in arrears, he denied summary judgment on the TILA claim. Judge Pusateri further affirmatively held that even if the Plaintiff were successful in proving a TILA violation on these facts, it would not rise to the level of an unconscionable act and would not support a per se violation of § 50-627 of the KCPA as Plaintiff advocated.

Following Judge Pusateri’s summary judgment ruling, the Plaintiff issued requests for admission, received responses, and filed her supplemental motion for summary judgment, relying heavily upon Defendant’s responses in support of her case.

In responding to the requests for admission, the Defendant states that, with respect to the Ford loan, the note was signed on August 31, 1998, the date the disclosures were made, and that the first insurance premium was paid by Defendant and credited against Plaintiffs principal balance on September 25, 1998. Plaintiffs first payment was due on October 15, 1998. According to the responses, the Defendant buys blanket credit disability and credit life insurance for its credit union members. Those members wishing to participate in insurance elect to do so when they incur credit. The Defendant causes the monthly premium for the group to be paid on the 25th of each month and then spreads that premium across the participating members by charging each member his or her ratable share based on the amount of credit a member has outstanding on that date. Thus, in the case of Plaintiffs Ford loan, the first insurance premiums were charged on September 25, 1998 and added to her principal balance as of that date even though no payment was due on her loan until October 15. These premiums were in the amounts of $16.78 for disability and $11.54 for credit life.

The Chevy loan was made on the same day as the Ford loan and provided for the same first payment due date of October 15, 1998. In following the same protocol as set out above, the Defendant paid a disability premium of $8.43 and a credit life premium of $5.80 on September 25, 1998 and added those amounts to the principal balance of the Chevy loan.

The payment ledgers attached to Plaintiffs requests for admission reflect that both the Ford loan and the Chevy loan were a refinance or restructuring of a preexisting loan. In the case of the Ford loan, the payment ledger shows a loan balance of $3,607.48 going back as far as July 1996. The Ford loan was added to the principal balance in May 1998 and refinanced on August 31, 1998. In the case of the Chevy loan, the payment ledger shows a new loan in the amount of $4,399.22 was originated in November 1997 and refinanced on August 31,1998.

Nothing in the requests for admission directly solicits the information that Judge Pusateri deemed critical to his analysis. In denying summary judgment, he stated “the relevant question is not when the insurance charges were added to the loan, but whether, when they were added, they were to pay for insurance coverage for a *226

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
303 B.R. 223, 2003 Bankr. LEXIS 1792, 2003 WL 23119836, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/nave-v-community-america-credit-union-in-re-nave-ksd-2003.