Court of Appeals of Michigan Really Got This Wrong

[budwad]

A case just decided by the Michigan court of appeals ruled on 10/15/19 that a tire rotation by a car dealer didn't included tightening the lug nuts to secure the tire.

Read the case and post your comments.

This is the judiciary gone over the edge. Instead of parsing the word "unfair" practices in the Motor Vehicle Service and Repair Act (MVSRA), they chose to parse the word "preform".

[flyingron]

This is actually mischaracturized in the media. This has not much to do with whether not tightening the lug nuts are part of the tire rotation job.
This has to do with the use of a fraud statute aimed at car service places in a directed judgment. The court points out that "perform" in the sense applied in the statute, doesn't mean "performed successfully." This statute was constructed to counter servicers who claim to have done some job but didn't, rather than not doing it correctly.

Hopefully, this will continue under the remand to actually try the case under general negligence.

This is not too uncommon. There are similar cases with regard to home repair contractors. If a guy takes your money to replace the roof and doesn't do it, that's fraud. If he does a lousy job and the roof leaks, that's a different course of action.

[budwad]

I don't exactly agree with your post. the MVSRA is much more than that.

But I do understand your point.

[Taxing Matters]

This is the judiciary gone over the edge. Instead of parsing the word "unfair" practices in the Motor Vehicle Service and Repair Act (MVSRA), they chose to parse the word "preform".

It is hardly judiciary gone over the edge. The court is interpeting a part of the statute. The trial court said that the defendant did not do "perform" a tire rotation. The appeals court merely pointed out that the dealer did do that, it just wasn't done well and was apparently done negligently. Based on the facts as described by the court, I agree with that. Note that the court does not say that the plaintiff's don't have any cause of action for the harm suffered from the negligent work. Nor does it say that there is no claim under the MVSRA, either. The court simply said that the trial court was in error in granting a directed verdict for the plaintiffs and reversed. In short the court said it wrong of the trial court to take the issue away from the jury. The trial court should have let the jury decide it. I have no problem with that.

[flyingron]

I don't exactly agree with your post. the MVSRA is much more than that.

Of course, there's more to the act, but what was being decided was the directed judgment based on "failure to perform the promised repairs" part of the statute.