In this lemon law case, plaintiff experienced intermittent issues with the infotainment system in his Ram truck. He was provided a rental car while it was being inspected by the dealership, and the dealership was unable to duplicate plaintiff’s complaints. FCA offered to repurchase the truck if he returned it without excessive wear-and-tear and signed a release. Plaintiff did not accept the deal, and instead sued for enhanced statutory remedies available upon breach of new car auto warranties. Plaintiff then registered the truck as nonoperational rather than drive it with a supposedly malfunctioning infotainment system. He rented other vehicles for about a year before buying another truck.
The trial court agreed FCA’s repurchase offer satisfied its statutory obligations, and FCA conceded liability as to plaintiff’s implied warranty claim. In a bench trial, the court awarded the purchase price of the Ram truck, as well as vehicle insurance premiums, but declined to award costs related to the rental cars or the replacement truck, finding those costs were not reasonably incurred while plaintiff owned a drivable truck. The trial court did not clarify whether plaintiff was required to return the Ram truck to FCA in return for reimbursement of the purchase price. The parties cross-appealed and FCA retained Horvitz & Levy to handle the appeals.
In a complete win for FCA, the Court of Appeal reversed with respect to the manufacturer’s challenges to the judgment and affirmed with respect to the plaintiff’s challenges. The court held that (1) plaintiff was not entitled to recover the cost of substitute goods, as a party is entitled only to the difference between the original contract price and any excess cost of the substitute, but here, the buyer recovered the FCA truck’s purchase price and paid less for the replacement truck; (2) plaintiff was not entitled to recover the insurance premiums paid for liability and uninsured motorist coverage (for both the Ram truck and the replacement truck), which are basic costs of driving, not costs caused by breach of warranty; and (3) plaintiff was required to return the vehicle to obtain restitution under the Act.
In an unpublished portion of the opinion, the Court of Appeal rejected plaintiff’s argument that a manufacturer who extends a prelitigation repurchase offer has violated its statutory obligations whenever a repurchase does not occur—even if that is true because the plaintiff rejected or ignored the offer. “We see no indication that the Legislature expected manufacturers to foist money on buyers and compel them to relinquish their vehicles.” It also held that this particular repurchase offer was compliant, despite the excessive wear-and-tear and release conditions and the lack of any offer to pay incidental damages. The court also held that the Act does not require a manufacturer to offer a replacement vehicle.
Maneri v. FCA 
