In this lemon law case, plaintiff first experienced recurring engine issues in his Kia Sorento a little over a year after leasing it. When plaintiff finally brought the vehicle in for repair, over 18 months after its first malfunction, the dealership was unable to repair the vehicle for four months. Once repairs were finished, plaintiff refused to pick up the vehicle and instead sued Kia for breach of express and implied warranties and untimely repair under the Song-Beverly Act, and fraudulent inducement by misrepresentation and concealment. The trial court granted summary judgment for Kia on plaintiff’s warranty and fraud claims, and it later directed a verdict for Kia on the untimely repair claim. Plaintiff appealed the summary judgment and directed verdict rulings.
Kia retained Horvitz & Levy to defend the judgment on appeal. The Court of Appeal affirmed across the board. The court agreed with Kia that plaintiff had no recoverable damages for the untimely repair claim. In particular, plaintiff could not recover all lease payments based solely on the delayed repair because he failed to show any clear and unequivocal revocation of the lease before Kia repaired the car. The court then held that plaintiff’s fraudulent misrepresentation claim failed for lack of any relied-upon misstatement, and the fraudulent concealment claim failed because plaintiff had shown no evidence that Kia was under a duty to disclose given his lack of “direct dealings” with Kia. Finally, the court affirmed the judgment on the implied warranty claim, declining to consider plaintiff’s new argument that the Song-Beverly Act extends implied-warranty obligations to automobile distributors.
Anaya v. Kia 
