In Kirzhner v. Mercedes-Benz USA, LLC, the Supreme Court today green lights the possibility of additional damages under the state’s statutory “lemon law,” which provides for either a new vehicle or restitution to owners or lessees of new vehicles with irreparable defects.
The court’s unanimous opinion by Justice Joshua Groban holds that, in addition to other reimbursements, the plaintiff in the case might be able to recover vehicle registration renewal and non-operation fees he paid after the initial lease of his vehicle. These would qualify as “incidental damages” under the statute “if they were incurred as a result of the manufacturer’s breach of its duty to promptly provide a replacement vehicle or restitution under the Act.”
The opinion is based on an interpretation of “incidental damages” as defined by California’s Uniform Commercial Code. The court concludes the fees in question “are unlike the standard costs of ownership or use that buyers freely choose to incur for their own benefit in order to drive the vehicle,” like gas, car washes, or oil changes, and “are more akin to post-revocation care and custody costs courts have awarded as reasonably incurred in order maintain and protect the goods for the seller’s benefit pending the seller’s retrieval of the goods.”
The court reverses the Fourth District, Division Three, Court of Appeal.
