Pryor Oldsmobile/GMC Co. v. Tennessee Motor Vehicle Commission

803 S.W.2d 227, 1990 Tenn. App. LEXIS 745
CourtCourt of Appeals of Tennessee
DecidedOctober 10, 1990
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 803 S.W.2d 227 (Pryor Oldsmobile/GMC Co. v. Tennessee Motor Vehicle Commission) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Tennessee primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Pryor Oldsmobile/GMC Co. v. Tennessee Motor Vehicle Commission, 803 S.W.2d 227, 1990 Tenn. App. LEXIS 745 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1990).

Opinions

OPINION

TODD, Presiding Judge.

The defendant, Tennessee Motor Vehicle Commission, and defendant-intervenor Pat Patterson Motors, Inc., have appealed from a judgment of the Trial Court reversing the administrative decision of the Commission denying the application of the plaintiff Pryor Oldsmobile/GMC Company, Inc., for a license to sell automobiles at a “branch location”, and directing the Commission issue the license.

This cause has been the subject of a previous appeal to this Court which was concluded on May 13, 1988, by an opinion and judgment remanding the cause to the Commission for consideration in accordance with that opinion. The parties have not requested that the record of the former appeal be consolidated with that of the present appeal.

The present record contains a second application filed with the Commission on October 14, 1988. The application is in the name of “Pryor Oldsmobile” (omitting GMC Company, Inc.) and requests a license to operate as a motor vehicle dealer at 4451 Mall of Memphis, Memphis, Tennessee. In the space for “Financial Statement” is the following notation:

Previously filed Second location.

Other pertinent information in the application is:

Firm Name: Pryor Oldsmobile
Line Make: Oldsmobile
Manufacturer: General Motors
Description of Quarters ...: Mall of Memphis — a majority of the 1889 sq. ft. of space will be showroom
Number of Motor Vehicle Salesmen employed by you: 0 (at this location)
The application is signed:
Martin Pryor
President

The record also contains an order of the Commission dated November 14, 1988, as follows:

IN THE MATTER OF:
License Application of Pryor Oldsmobile/General Motors Corporation.
ORDER
This cause came on to be heard before the Tennessee Motor Vehicle Commission upon the application of Pryor Oldsmobile/GMC, holder of an existing dealer’s license for a branch showroom or additional location pursuant to TCA § 55-7-110(a), upon presentation of the application to the Tennessee Motor Vehicle Comission [sic] by counsel for Pryor Oldsmobile, Joe Lee Wyatt, attorney at law, upon the questions presented by the Commission members, from all of which it appears that the application for the license for an additional location and/or branch showroom was correct and appropriate in all respects with the exception of the inability of the applicant to provide for servicing and repairing of vehicles on site at the Mall of Memphis as such is defined by TCA § 55-17-102(7).
IT IS, THEREFORE, ORDERED, ADJUDGED AND DECREED by the Com[229]*229mission that the application be denied for those reasons heretofore set forth.

On December 7, 1988, plaintiff, Pryor Oldsmobile/GMC Company, Inc., filed in the Trial Court a petition for judicial review of the above quoted order.

On May 5, 1989, Pat Patterson Motors was granted leave to intervene as a defendant.

On November 2, 1989, the Trial Court entered an order reversing the order of the Commission and requiring the issuance of the requested license.

On appeal, the Commission presents the single issue of the correctness of the judgment of the Trial Court. The inter-venor presents the issue in the following form:

Upon judicial review, under the Administrative Procedure Act, of the Motor Vehicle Commission’s refusal to issue a separate license to a licensed new automobile dealer to establish a branch sales room in a shopping mall, may the Court properly direct the issuance of such a license when (a) the Motor Vehicle Sales License Act does not create any such license as a motor vehicle dealer branch, and (b) the branch sales room did not have such facilities as to meet the statutory requisites for an “Established place of business” as defined by T.C.A. § 55-17-102(8).

The brief of the Commission simply adopts the brief of the intervenor.

The plaintiff-appellee presents the issue in the following terms:

Whether the trial court erred in reversing the Commission’s denial of Pryor’s application for a license when said application was correct and appropriate in all respects with the exception, in the Commissioner’s opinion, regarding the inability of Pryor to provide for servicing and repairing of vehicles on site as defined by TCA § 55-17-102(7). [Now TCA § 55-17-102(8)]

The substance of the dispute is whether the Commission’s order denying the requested license is reversible because the only ground for the decision was that the proposed dealership had no “on site servicing and repairing facilities and relied upon similar facilities at another location where the applicant did provide such facilities.

The decision of the Trial Court was based upon the lack of statutory authority to deny the license on the ground stated.

T.C.A. Title 55, Chapter 17 is entitled “Motor Vehicle Sales Licenses”.

Section 55-17-101 declares that licensing the distribution and sale of motor vehicles is necessary “to prevent frauds, impositions and other abuses upon its citizens”.

Section 55-17-102 is entitled “Definitions”, and contains the following:

(8) “Established place of business” means a permanent structure or structures owned, leased or rented by a motor vehicle dealer providing signs, facilities and office space used exclusively for buying, selling, displaying, advertising, demonstrating, servicing or repairing motor vehicles or functional or nonfunctional parts of motor vehicles and where replacement parts, repair tools and equipment as well as the books and records needed to conduct the business are kept. Such structure or structures must be physically apart from any other business and shall not include a private residence of any sort, tent or temporary stand;
(15) “Motor vehicle dealer” means any person not excluded by subdivision (17) engaged in the business of selling, offering to sell, soliciting or advertising the sale of motor vehicles or possessing motor vehicles for the purpose of resale either on his own account or on behalf of another, either as his primary business or incidental thereto; (emphasis supplied)

Sections 55-17-103 — 106 create the Commission and provide for its meetings and staff.

Section 55-17-107 provides as follows:

The commission is hereby vested with those powers and duties necessary and proper to enable it to fully and effectively carry out the provisions and objectives [230]*230of this chapter, including but not limited to:
(1) The authority to promulgate reasonable substantive and procedural rules pursuant to title 4, chapter 5; and

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
803 S.W.2d 227, 1990 Tenn. App. LEXIS 745, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/pryor-oldsmobilegmc-co-v-tennessee-motor-vehicle-commission-tennctapp-1990.