Cartagena-Cordero v. Five Star Cars, LLC, No. 3:19-cv-1728 (SRU)

Decision Date15 October 2020
Docket NumberNo. 3:19-cv-1728 (SRU)
Citation494 F.Supp.3d 204
Parties Emmanuel CARTAGENA-CORDERO, Plaintiff, v. FIVE STAR CARS, LLC, et al., Defendants.
CourtU.S. District Court — District of Connecticut

Brendan Lorenz Mahoney, Daniel S. Blinn, Consumer Law Group, Rocky Hill, CT, for Plaintiff.

ORDER

Stefan R. Underhill, United States District Judge

On October 6, 2020, I granted in part and denied in part Cartagena-Cordero's third renewed motion for a default judgment against Five Star Cars, LLC ("Five Star"). See Order, Doc. No. 27. In that motion, Cartagena-Cordero had sought $55,298.84 in actual, statutory, and punitive damages. See Third Renewed Mot. for J., Doc. No. 26, at 1. I allowed Cartagena-Cordero to recover $14,762.04. See Order, Doc. No. 27, at 1. In relevant part, I awarded Cartagena-Cordero $1,002 in statutory damages for Five Star's violations of the Truth in Lending Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1601, et seq. (the "TILA"). See id. at 25–26. On October 13, 2020, Cartagena-Cordero made a motion for reconsideration. See Mot. for Reconsideration, Doc. No. 29. In that motion, Cartagena-Cordero claims that he is entitled to $2,000 (rather than $1,002) in statutory damages for Five Star's TILA violations. See id. at 1. I agree, and so I grant Cartagena-Cordero's motion for reconsideration. The Clerk is instructed to amend the judgment accordingly.1

I. Standard of Review

"The major grounds justifying reconsideration are an intervening change of controlling law, the availability of new evidence, or the need to correct a clear error or prevent manifest injustice." Virgin Atl. Airways, Ltd. v. Nat'l Mediation Bd. , 956 F.2d 1245, 1255 (2d Cir. 1992) (cleaned up). The standard for granting a motion for reconsideration "is strict, and reconsideration will generally be denied unless the moving party can point to controlling decisions or data that the court overlooked." Analytical Surveys, Inc. v. Tonga Partners, L.P. , 684 F.3d 36, 52 (2d Cir. 2012) (quoting Shrader v. CSX Transp., Inc. , 70 F.3d 255, 257 (2d Cir. 1995) ). A motion for reconsideration "is not a vehicle for relitigating old issues, presenting the case under new theories, securing a rehearing on the merits, or otherwise taking a second bite at the apple." Analytical Surveys , 684 F.3d at 52 (quoting Sequa Corp. v. GBJ Corp. , 156 F.3d 136, 144 (2d Cir. 1998) ) (cleaned up).

II. Background2
A. Factual Background

On December 5, 2018, Cartagena-Cordero, a New Britain, Connecticut resident, visited Five Star, a used car dealership in Meriden, Connecticut. See Compl., Doc. No. 1, at ¶¶ 2–3, 9. Cartagena-Cordero visited Five Star because he was interested in a used 2008 Ford Super Duty F-250 SRW (the "Truck"), which he had seen advertised on cargurus.com. See id. at ¶ 9. Cartagena-Cordero learned that the Truck was advertised for $15,999 when he got to the Five Star dealership. See Aff. of E. Cartagena-Cordero, Doc. No. 26-4, at ¶ 6; Pl.’s Mem. of Law in Supp. Third Renewed Mot. for J., Doc. No. 26-1, at 17. Cartagena-Cordero agreed to buy the Truck for $15,999 and paid a $200 deposit. See Compl., Doc. No. 1, at ¶ 13.

On December 6, Cartagena-Cordero returned to Five Star and paid an additional $3,000 towards a total down payment of $3,500. See id. at ¶ 14. (At that point, Cartagena-Cordero had paid $3,200 total.) Cartagena-Cordero also claims that he "executed a purchase order," but "unbeknownst to [him], Five Star increased the purchase price [from $15,999] to $16,500 ...." Id. at ¶ 15. Cartagena-Cordero explains that he "planned to finance the transaction," but he "did not execute a retail installment sales contract that day and was unaware that he needed to do so as part of a dealer-arranged financed transaction." Id. at ¶ 16. Cartagena-Cordero believes that Five Star increased the purchase price from $15,999 to $16,500 because "it planned to assign the retail installment sales contract to a discount finance company that would charge [a] fee or otherwise delay compensation in consideration of accepting the contract." Id. at ¶ 17. Thus, "to maintain suitable profit," Five Star "increased the cash price of the" Truck. Id. Cartagena-Cordero concludes: The price increase "would not have been present in a comparable cash transaction and was incidental to the extension of credit." Id.

On December 7, 2018, Five Star fraudulently (according to Cartagena-Cordero) executed a retail installment sales contract that it assigned to Westlake Services, LLC ("Westlake"), another former defendant in this action. See id. at ¶ 18. (I will refer to that retail installment sales contract as the "Forged Contract.") That Forged Contract is signed electronically by Cartagena-Cordero in three places with a time stamp of 9:18:05 AM PST (12:18:05 PM EST). See Forged Contract, Ex. 2 to Aff. of E. Cartagena-Cordero, Doc. No. 26-4, at 18, 21. But Cartagena-Cordero "could not have signed the Forged Contract at that time, because he was bowling with friends in East Hartford, Connecticut." Compl., Doc. No. 1, at ¶ 20. Indeed, Cartagena-Cordero alleges that he never saw a copy of the Forged Contract until March 2019, when he requested it from Westlake. See id. at ¶ 22. In the Forged Contract, the "$501 increase to the cash price [of $15,999] was included as part of the amount financed in the itemization ... instead of part of the finance charge." Id. at ¶ 21; see also Order, Doc. No. 27, at 8 n.6. Importantly, as Cartagena-Cordero now brings to my attention, the Forged Contract also listed a series of "Truth-In-Lending Disclosure[s]." See Forged Contract, Doc. No. 26-4, at 16. One of those disclosures was a "Finance Charge," which was defined on the Forged Contract as "[t]he dollar amount the credit will cost you." Id. The Forged Contract listed the "Finance Charge" as $7,079.08. Id.

B. My Previous Order

In my order granting in part and denying in part Cartagena-Cordero's motion for a default judgment against Five Star, I held that Five Star had violated the TILA. The TILA requires creditors, such as Five Star,3 to "disclose ... [t]he ‘finance charge,’ not itemized, using that term." 15 U.S.C. § 1638(a)(3). Any " ‘finance charge’ shall be disclosed more conspicuously than other terms, data, or information provided in connection with a transaction, except information relating to the identity of the creditor." 15 U.S.C. § 1632(a). A "finance charge" is "the cost of consumer credit as a dollar amount," and it "includes any charge payable directly or indirectly by the consumer and imposed directly or indirectly by the creditor as an incident to or a condition of the extension of credit." 12 C.F.R. § 226.4(a). A "finance charge" does "not include any charge of a type payable in a comparable cash transaction." Id. And a "cash price" is "the price at which a creditor, in the ordinary course of business, offers to sell for cash property or service that is the subject of the transaction." 12 C.F.R. § 226.2(a)(9). The term "cash price" "does not include any finance charge." Id.

I agreed with Cartagena-Cordero that Five Star had violated the TILA in two ways. The first was by "burying" the $501 finance charge within the $16,500 "cash price" of the Truck. See Order, Doc. No. 27, at 15. The second was by failing to give Cartagena-Cordero a copy of the retail sales installment contract. See id. Cartagena-Cordero does not dispute that analysis in his motion for reconsideration.

Regarding the damages due to Cartagena-Cordero for Five Star's TILA violations, I held as follows:

Under the TILA, "any creditor who fails to comply with any requirement imposed under this part ... is liable" for "any actual damage sustained by such person as a result of the failure." 15 U.S.C. § 1640(a)(1). In an individual action, the creditor will be liable for "twice the amount of any finance charge in connection with the transaction." Id. § 1640(a)(2)(A)(i). Depending on the type of individual action, a statutory cap on damages might apply. Cartagena-Cordero claims that he "is entitled to recover actual damages and statutory damages of double the finance charge of $7,079.08 pursuant to 15 U.S.C. § 1638(a)(2)(A)(ii) [sic ] capped at $2,000." Pl.’s Mem. of Law, Doc. No. 26-1, at 11. Thus, Cartagena-Cordero seeks to recover statutory damages of $2,000. See id. at 26. Cartagena-Cordero's assessment is off the mark. The finance charge at issue amounts to $501, not $7,079.08. Indeed, it is entirely unclear from where Cartagena-Cordero produces the $7,079.08 figure. Cartagena-Cordero does not allege any "actual damages" he suffered as a result of Five Star's TILA violation beyond the concealed finance charge. Thus, I hold that, for Five Star's violation of the TILA, Cartagena-Cordero is entitled to "twice the amount of any finance charge in connection with the transaction," which is $1,002.

Id. at 25–26 (internal footnotes omitted).

In his motion for reconsideration, Cartagena-Cordero claims that I was wrong when I held that "the finance charge at issue amounts to $501, not $7,079.08" and when I remarked that "it is entirely unclear from where Cartagena-Cordero produces the $7,079.08 figure." Id. at 26. Cartagena-Cordero now points me to the source of the $7,079.08 figure: The first page of the Forged Contract. See Mem. in Supp. Mot. for Reconsideration ("Cartagena-Cordero's Mem. of Law"), Doc. No. 29-1, at 1–2; see also Forged Contract, Doc. No. 26-4, at 16 (listing "Finance Charge" as "$7079.08"). The $7,079.08 "Finance Charge" on the first page of the Forged Contract is described as "[t]he dollar amount the credit will cost you." Forged Contract, Doc. No. 26-4, at 16. It is thus also a "finance charge" within the meaning of the TILA. See 15 U.S.C. § 1605(a) (defining "finance charge" as, in part, "the sum of all charges, payable directly or indirectly by the person to whom the credit is extended, and imposed directly or indirectly by the creditor as an incident to the extension of credit"); 12 C.F.R. § 226.4(a) ("The finance charge is the cost of...

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