Green v. BMW of N. Am., LLC

• Decision Date: 19 December 2011
• Docket Number: A11-581
• Parties: Marie Delores Green, Respondent, v. BMW of North America, LLC, a foreign limited liability company qualified to do business in the State of Minnesota, Appellant.
• Court: Minnesota Court of Appeals

Marie Delores Green, Respondent, v. BMW of North America, LLC, a foreign limited liability companyqualified to do business in the State of Minnesota, Appellant.

A11-581

STATE OF MINNESOTA IN COURT OF APPEALS

December 19, 2011

This opinion will be unpublished and may not be cited except as provided by Minn. Stat. § 480A.08, subd. 3 (2010).

Affirmed

Bjorkman, Judge

Concurring in part, dissenting in part, Johnson, Chief Judge

Hennepin County District Court

File No. 27-CV-08-29818

Todd E. Gadtke, Daniel J. Brennan, Gadtke & Brennan, P.A., Maple Grove, Minnesota (for respondent)

Lenae M. Pederson, Meagher & Geer, P.L.L.P., Minneapolis, Minnesota; and

Timothy V. Hoffman (pro hac vice), Sanchez Daniels Hoffman LLP, Chicago, Illinois (for appellant)

Considered and decided by Larkin, Presiding Judge; Johnson, Chief Judge; and Bjorkman, Judge.

UNPUBLISHED OPINION

BJORKMAN, Judge

Appellant BMW of North America, LLC challenges the judgment awarding respondent-lessee Marie Delores Green a full refund of her lease payments and attorney fees and costs on her lemon-law and warranty claims. BMW argues that the district court erred in (1) concluding that Green is a "consumer" within the meaning of the lemon law, (2) finding that Green's vehicle has a defect or condition that substantially impairs its use or market value, and (3) finding that BMW breached its express and implied warranties to respondent; and that the district court abused its discretion in awarding attorney fees. We affirm.

FACTS

On May 31, 2007, Green signed a 39-month lease for a new 2007 BMW 328xi. Green paid $5,000 and agreed to monthly payments of $591.58, for a total of $27,803.04. Although Green made all of the lease payments, and was the sole lessee, she rarely drove the vehicle and did not drive it at all after the first year. Instead, she permitted her adult son Michael McDonough almost exclusive use of the vehicle. Over the course of the lease term, McDonough brought the vehicle in for service at BMW authorized dealerships at least 16 times, with two recurring problems: intermittent failure to accelerate properly from a stop or while driving in traffic and a malfunctioning sunroof.

McDonough first brought the vehicle in for service in September 2007 because the vehicle was hesitating before accelerating. He explained that the vehicle intermittently hesitated for several seconds after he depressed the accelerator. The problem was mostpronounced when accelerating from a stop but also occurred when accelerating to maneuver in traffic. McDonough returned with the same complaint in February and June 2008. The dealership repeatedly advised McDonough that the vehicle was operating properly. McDonough also reported that the sunroof was rattling in June 2008, and again the following month. When he spoke with the service manager in connection with the second service visit related to the sunroof, McDonough complained that the vehicle was a "lemon."

In August 2008, McDonough took the vehicle to a second BMW authorized dealership complaining, for the third time, about the sunroof rattle. After an unsuccessful attempt to repair the sunroof, the dealership replaced the sunroof cassette the following month. Meanwhile, McDonough continued to experience the acceleration hesitation, and brought the vehicle to the second dealership for that problem in February 2009. The service personnel submitted a written request to BMW to investigate the complaint further but did not perform any repairs. McDonough returned to the dealership in May 2009, complaining that the new sunroof intermittently opened by itself when he was trying to close it. The dealership told McDonough that it could not "duplicate" the problem and returned the vehicle to McDonough without making any repairs. McDonough returned to the dealership with the same sunroof complaint in August 2009; the dealership again performed no repairs.

Green initiated this action, asserting lemon-law and warranty claims. After a four-day bench trial, the district court found in favor of Green on all claims based on the acceleration hesitation and the various sunroof problems. The district court orderedBMW to refund Green the lease price based on the lemon-law violations and awarded Green $221,499.50 for attorney fees and $7,565.40 for litigation costs. This appeal follows.

DECISION

I. The district court did not err in concluding that Green is a "consumer" within the meaning of the lemon law.

Minnesota's lemon law protects consumers of new motor vehicles that have defects or conditions that substantially impair their use or value. Minn. Stat. § 325F.665, subd. 3(a) (2010). The lemon law defines "consumer" as "the purchaser or lessee, other than for purposes of resale or sublease, of a new motor vehicle used for personal, family, or household purposes at least 40 percent of the time." Minn. Stat. § 325F.665, subd. 1(b) (2010).¹ BMW argues that Green is not a consumer because she did not personally use the vehicle at least 40 percent of the time and her son's usage cannot constitute her "family" use.

Whether Green is a "consumer" based on the undisputed facts regarding the vehicle's use presents a question of statutory interpretation, which we review de novo. S.M. Hentges & Sons, Inc. v. Mensing, 777 N.W.2d 228, 231 (Minn. 2010). The goals of statutory interpretation are to "ascertain and effectuate the intention of the legislature." Minn. Stat. § 645.16 (2010). In doing so, we construe words and phrases according to their plain and ordinary meaning. Frank's Nursery Sales, Inc. v. City of Roseville, 295N.W.2d 604, 608 (Minn. 1980); see also Minn. Stat. § 645.08(1) (2010). When the legislature's intent is clearly discernible from a statute's plain and unambiguous language, we interpret the language according to its plain meaning without resorting to other principles of statutory construction. Beecroft v. Deutsche Bank Nat'l Trust Co., 798 N.W.2d 78, 82-83 (Minn. App. 2011).

BMW argues that although Green leased the vehicle, she is not a consumer because she did not actually drive the vehicle. We disagree. The lemon law defines "consumer" in two parts. First, a person claiming the law's protection must be a purchaser or lessee of a new motor vehicle. Second, the vehicle must be "used for personal, family, or household purposes at least 40 percent of the time." Minn. Stat. § 325F.665, subd. 1(b). By its terms, the usage requirement plainly modifies the term "vehicle," not the phrase "purchaser or lessee," and therefore does not limit who may drive the vehicle, so long as that usage is for one of the specified purposes.² Not only does BMW's focus on actual usage by the purchaser or lessee run counter to the plain language of the statute, but it would lead to almost absurd results by excluding numerous purchasers and lessees from the protection of the lemon law—including some that BMW asserts would be covered—simply because they permitted others frequent or exclusiveuse of their vehicles.³ See Minn. Stat. § 645.17(1) (2010) (stating presumption that the legislature does not intend an absurd result); Liabo v. Wayzata Nissan, LLC, 707 N.W.2d 715, 724 (Minn. App. 2006) (stating that "[c]onsumer-protection statutes are remedial in nature and are liberally construed in favor of protecting consumers"), review denied (Minn. Mar. 28, 2006).

But we agree with BMW's argument that the usage requirement, as an element of the statutory definition of the term consumer, is tethered to the purchaser or lessee. While the statute does not expressly limit who may drive the vehicle, the "personal, family, or household purposes" referenced are plainly those of the purchaser or lessee. Thus, Green may be considered a consumer under the lemon law if the vehicle she leased was used at least 40 percent of the time for her personal, family, or household purposes.

BMW argues that even if the language of the usage requirement itself is broad enough to encompass usage by those other than the purchaser or lessee, such an interpretation is contrary to provisions of the lemon law that permit a vehicle manufacturer to subtract "a reasonable allowance for the consumer's use of the vehicle" from the amount to be refunded for the purchase or lease price of a vehicle proved to be a lemon. See Minn. Stat. § 325F.665, subd. 3 (2010) (explaining that a reasonable allowance for use is "that amount directly attributable to use by the consumer and any previous consumer during any period in which the use and market value of the motorvehicle are not substantially impaired"). BMW asserts that use cannot be "the consumer's use" or "directly attributable to use by the consumer" unless the consumer drives the vehicle. We are not persuaded. Because subdivision 1 defines the term consumer in terms of specific types of vehicle usage, we discern the language in subdivision 3 to reference those uses, not limit them.

We, therefore, turn to the issue of whether McDonough's use of the vehicle constitutes use for Green's "personal, family, or household purposes." See Minn. Stat. § 325F.665, subd. 1(b). The lemon law does not define the term family, but a family is generally considered to include, at a minimum, parents and children. See The American Heritage Dictionary 638 (4th ed. 2006) (defining family as "[a] fundamental social group in society typically consisting of one or two parents and their children"). BMW asserts that McDonough does not fall within the "family" category because he is an adult and no longer resides in Green's household as her dependent. We disagree. Although family and household are considered equivalent in some circumstances,⁴ the legislature plainly distinguished between the two in the lemon law by separating the terms with the disjunctive "or." See Goldman v. Greenwood, 748 N.W.2d 279, 283 (Minn. 2008) (stating that the conjunction "or" normally is interpreted as disjunctive and that statutory terms separated by "or" "should not be confused" with each other). The...