Supreme Court depublishes UCL and CLRA standing opinion: Brooks v. CarMax Auto Superstores California LLC

On August 10, 2016, the Supreme Court issued an order depublishing the Court of Appeal's opinion in Brooks v. CarMax Auto Superstores California LLC, 246 Cal.App.4th 973 (2016), which was handed down in April. 

The opinion, which is now uncitable, summarizes the claims and trial court's ruling as follows:

After a court trial on stipulated facts, the court ruled Brooks had suffered no damage from CarMax's alleged violations of [Vehicle Code] section 11713.18 [which governs mandatory CQI Certificates for "certified" used vehicles], and therefore concluded she did not have standing to pursue claims under the CLRA or the UCL.  The court entered judgment for CarMax.  Brooks asserts on appeal that reversal is required because she adequately demonstrated the type of damage necessary to prosecute a claim under the CLRA or the UCL or, alternatively, she was entitled to prosecute her claims under the CLRA or the UCL without showing any injury.

Slip op. at 2. The Court of Appeal (Fourth Appellate District, Division One) disagreed with the trial court on the standing points, but affirmed the judgment after finding no deficiency in the defendant's CQI Certificate:

We agree with Brooks that the legislative scheme contemplates certain minimal standards must be met before a dealer may promote or sell a vehicle as certified, among which is that a dealer must provide a "completed inspection report indicating all the components inspected" to the buyer.  We also agree that, if those standards are not satisfied, a vehicle marketed and sold as certified has been mislabeled, and a buyer who establishes they would not have purchased the vehicle absent that "certified" label has standing to pursue claims for violation of the CLRA and UCL under the rationale of Kwikset, regardless of whether the particular vehicle purchased might be as mechanically sound or intrinsically valuable as a certified vehicle.

However, we conclude the trial court correctly entered judgment against Brooks (Rappleyea v. Campbell, supra, 8 Cal.4th at p. 981) because we reject Brooks's claim that the CQI Certificate was deficient in its content. ....

.....

Although the trial court premised its judgment on Brooks's lack of actual injury, we affirm the judgment as correct (Rappleyea v. Campbell, supra, 8 Cal.4th at p. 981) because we conclude both the content of the CQI Certificate and the mode it was provided to Brooks satisfied the requirements of section 11713.18, subdivision (a)(6).

Id. at 12-13, 20 (emphasis in original).

The successful depublication request was filed by Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety, which presumably disagreed with the Court of Appeal's reading of the CQI certification requirements.

Comments

[Charles Carreon]

Now that's some meaningful advocacy for consumers. And I side with the Supreme Court's decision. Whenever there is "affirmance on other grounds but not on those relied on by the trial court," the appellate court is in questionable territory.