Court Opinion

ID: 9568881
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:08:19.820888+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:11:31.516650
License: Public Domain

COYNE, Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. It appears to me that the majority has converted what was clearly intended as a remedial statute into a penal statute — with the penalty inuring to the benefit of one of the parties to a transaction declared by the majority to be in violation of Minn.Stat. § 325E.15 (1992).
In 1971 Minnesota adopted the Uniform Motor Vehicle Certificate of Title and Anti-Theft Act, codified as Minn.Stat. ch. 168A. The Act requires every vehicle owner to apply to the state registrar of motor vehicles for a certificate of title and prohibits the registration or renewal of registration of any vehicle for which a certificate of title has not been issued. Minn.Stat. § 168A.02 (1992). The Act prescribes the form and content of the application for the first certificate of title of a Minnesota vehicle, Minn.Stat. § 168A.04 (1992), and also sets out the requirements for the transfer of an interest other than by creation of a security interest by an owner, Minn.Stat. § 168A.10 (1992), or the transfer of a vehicle by an auto dealer, Minn.Stat. § 168A.11 (1992). More particularly, Minn. Stat. § 168A.11 provides that when a dealer transfers a vehicle to another person (other than by creation of a security interest), the dealer must execute an assignment and warranty of title, showing the names and addresses of the transferee and any secured party holding a security interest created or reserved at the time of the transfer on the certificate of title “or as the department prescribes.”
Using the form prescribed by the registrar, Daniels executed the assignment and dealer’s warranty of title. I would have no objection to holding Daniels and his surety responsible for the breach of Daniels’ express warranty of title of the stolen 1972 Mercedes, because an auto dealer is generally in a much better position to determine ownership than is the transferee, and in this instance Daniels could have frustrated Kaye’s transfer of a stolen vehicle simply by requiring Kaye to produce a certificate of title showing Kaye as the owner of the Mercedes. Nevertheless, here the trial court found as fact that Kaye represented himself as the owner and that Daniels did not claim to own the Mercedes or to be its seller. Though stated as conclusions of law the trial court also ruled that Gherity knew he was buying the car from Kaye, not Daniels, and that the executed form constituted neither an express nor an implied warranty of title.
Sections 168A.10 and 168A.11 also require, “[wjith respect to motor vehicles subject to the provisions of section 325E.15,” an owner or dealer transferor to state on the certificate of title or as the registrar prescribes, the true cumulative mileage registered on the odometer or that the actual mileage is unknown if the transferor knows the odometer reading does not reflect the true mileage.1
Daniels did complete an odometer statement certifying that to the best of his knowledge the odometer reading of 90,231 miles reflected the actual mileage of the Mercedes. There is in the record before us no evidence of falsity with respect either to the odometer reading or to Daniels’ certification of the mileage. Indeed, Gherity has never claimed that the statement with respect to the odometer reading was inaccurate. It is true, of course, that the odometer statement did not provide the name and address of the actual seller or transferor, Bill Kaye, and that violation of Minn.R. 7402.0400 may expose Daniels to the penalty provisions of Minn.Stat. § 325E.16 (1992). ' The penalty provisions are found at subdivisions 1 and 2 of section 325E.16:
*820Subdivision 1. Any person who is found to have violated sections 325E.13 to 325E.16 shall be guilty of a gross misdemeanor.
Subd. 2. In addition to the penalties provided in subdivision 1, any person who is found to have violated sections 325E.13 to 325.16 shall be subject to the penalties provided in section 8.31.
It is, however, only the state that is entitled to invoke the penalty provisions. A party to the transaction is limited to the remedy provided by subdivision 3 of section 325E.16:
Any person injured by a violation of sections 325E.13 to 325E.16 shall recover the actual damages sustained together with costs and disbursements, including a reasonable attorney’s fee, provided that the court in its discretion may increase the award of damages to an amount not to exceed three times the actual damages sustained or $1,500, whichever is greater.
Despite the possibility of treble damages (which might be considered a penalty), subdivision 3 provides a remedy to one injured by a violation of the odometer tampering statute. Hence, the complainant must demonstrate not only that he has been injured and the extent of that injury but he must also prove that the violation of sections 325E.13 to 325E.16 caused his injury.
As I mentioned earlier, the only violation of sections 325E.13 to 325E.16 that has been shown here is the failure to correctly identify Kaye as the transferor as required by Minn.R. 7402.0400. Certainly, the false identification of the transferor could under some circumstances cause the damages of an unsuspecting transferee. In view, however, of the trial court’s determination that Gherity was well aware that Kaye, not Daniels, was the seller/transferor and that Daniels never represented to Gherity that he was the trans-feror, Gherity is hardly in any position to assert that the failure to correctly identify the transferor caused his damages. Nevertheless, although the majority as well as the trial court recognize that Gherity knew that Daniels did not claim to be either the owner or transferor of the Mercedes and that Gherity was not misled by the incorrect identification of the transferor on the odometer certificate, the majority regards that violation of the rule prescribing the form of the odometer certificate as the basis for an award of damages pursuant to section 325E.16 even though the violation had nothing to do with causing Gherity’s damages. That the Mercedes Kaye sold him had been stolen was, of course, the actual cause of Gherity’s damages.
Moreover, the requirement that the trans-feror’s name and address be included on the odometer statement does not appear anywhere in sections 325E.13 to 325E.16, but only in Minn.R. 7402.0400. The stated purpose of chapter 7402 of the Minnesota Rules is “to prescribe the manner in which disclosure of odometer reading and its accuracy shall be made to the transferee at the time of transfer of a motor vehicle.” Minn.R. 7402.0200. Neither the odometer statute sections 325E.13 to 325E.16 nor Rule 7402.0400 refer to a warranty of title. Therefore, since the only violation of the odometer statute — the incorrect identification of the transferor on the odometer statement — was a mere technical violation as between Daniels and Gherity, both of whom knew that Kaye was the actual transferor, holding Daniels and his surety liable for the amount of Carousel’s judgment against Gherity plus costs, disbursements and attorney fees is to treat section 325E.16 as a penalty for a technical violation.
The majority explains its imposition of liability through application of section 325E.16 by melding chapters 168A and 325E in what the majority characterizes as a “larger statutory scheme.” It does not explain, however, what legal basis there is for combining two discrete chapters codifying acts adopted by the legislature in different sessions.2 Subsequent to the adoption of the odometer statute, sections 168A.10 and 168A.11 were *821amended to import the requirements of section 325A.15. There is no mention in chapter 168A of any other section of the odometer statute. Had the legislature intended to subject violations of section 168A.10 or section 168A.11 to the penalty or remedial provisions of section 325E.16,1 have not the least doubt that it would have said so. Instead, it appears to me that the legislature left one injured by a violation of section 168A.10 or 168A.11 to his or her common law remedies. Surely, had Gherity relied to his detriment on the warranty of title contained in the odometer statement signed by Daniels, Gherity could recover his damages; but the trial court found as fact that, under the circumstances of the case, the parties did not intend that the odometer statement given by Daniels constitute a warranty of title.
Gherity, then, is left to his remedy against Kaye, from whom he bought the Mercedes. Of course, Gherity has already secured a default judgment against Kaye. That that judgment may be uncollectible is, indeed, Gherity’s misfortune. It does, however, leave Gherity in the same position that he would have occupied had Daniels never been involved and had Kaye and Gherity completed their transaction without Daniels’ participation.
Moreover, even if Daniels had given a warranty of title on which Gherity relied, the amount of Carousel’s judgment against him would not constitute the measure of his damages. Gherity paid Kaye $12,500 for the Mercedes; it is that amount, less the value of the use of the car from the date of acquisition to the date Gherity traded it to Carousel that constitutes Gherity’s damages. The loss of the value of the Mercedes as a trade-in on a new automobile is a matter of loss of bargain, not damages resulting from breach of warranty of title.
Finally, it is unlikely, I think, that Daniels will — to put it in the vernacular — come away scot free. It seems probable to me that even though the state may see no reason to treat the technical violation of section 325E.15 as a gross misdemeanor, it may look to Daniels for payment of any sales tax avoided by the “convenience delivery.” Although that may be a suitable penalty for Daniels’ unwitting participation in Kaye’s scheme to transfer a stolen vehicle, it does seem to me that the amount of sales tax that John or Jane Q. Public must pay on a replacement automobile that is new or of somewhat more recent vintage than its predecessor ought not to depend on whether John or Jane trades the old car to the dealer as partial payment for the new automobile or sells the old car directly to a third party. In short, even though transactions of many kinds and degrees of complexity are legitimately structured to reduce or avoid tax liability, to require this very ordinary kind of transaction to be arranged in a certain way to avoid paying what many members of the public look on as double taxation does not seem to me very sensible. That, however, is a matter for the legislature.
For the foregoing reasons, I would reverse the decision of the court of appeals and vacate the judgment entered in the district court.

. The only cross reference between chapter 168A and chapter 325E is that contained in sections 168A.10 and 168A.11.

. In 1971 the legislature adopted the Uniform Motor Vehicle Certificate of Title and Anti-Theft Act and codified it as Minn.Stat. ch. 168A. The odometer statute, which is not a part of the Uniform Certificate of Title Act and which is codified as Minn.Stat. §§ 325E.13 to 325E.16, was not adopted until 1973.