A Class Action Page 9

  With that last statement, he exits the Hummer. I look in my mirror at the kid and she winks at me. I don’t know what language that wink is in, but it tells me that she got the whole conversation on tape. I’m not sure about the legality of what she did, but we’re the only two people in the world who know that the tape exists, and I’m pretty sure that the kid will never tell anyone.

  We pick up a much smaller and nicer smelling dog and head back to the boat. He hops into the front passenger seat and is riding with his head up and out of the open sunroof. Suzi made sure that I put the dog’s ‘Doggles’ on him first. Those are special dog goggles designed to protect his eyes from flying road debris. We get plenty attention as we drive down the street like this, because he looks like some World War I air ace, with his aviator-style goggles on and those big ears flopping in the wind.

  The kid is still in the back seat working on her Chinese crossword puzzle and I’m still trying to process what Eaton was talking about. He mentioned the word ‘caliper,’ but I don’t have the slightest idea of what that means. I speak a memo out loud, supposedly directed to the recording device, but really meant for the kid to hear. “Memo to office – try to get police report details on what could have possibly caused his wife’s car to go off the road – other than the explosion.”

  After dropping off the dynamic duo at the boat, there’s still time for me to beat the rush hour traffic and get downtown to visit with Joe Morgan. When he’s brought into the interview room, his spirits are high. He’s been following his case in the newspapers and realizes that the government really doesn’t have much against him. To his surprise, I seem more interested in the one question I ask him than I am in his case. “Joe, what the hell is a caliper, and does a Suburban have one?”

  He’s surprised to hear that word ‘caliper’ exists in a lawyer’s vocabulary. Without asking why I want to know, he goes on to explain that yes, the Suburban does have calipers. They’re part of the car’s braking system, and they work like C-clamps to pinch the pads onto the rotor. Brake hoses connect the caliper to the brake lines that lead to the master cylinder.

  “Joe, if something happens to the right front caliper of a Suburban, what happens to the vehicle?’

  “Nothing, until you step on the brakes. With only the left front caliper functioning, the left front wheel will brake to a stop while the right front wheel keeps going. The result is a sudden drastic left turn. A high vehicle like a Suburban, going fast enough, will flip over and roll… and that’s not good.”

  I tell Joe not to worry about his case, and I make a hasty exit. All the way back to the Marina I keep thinking about what Eaton said. He obviously knew that his wife’s right front caliper wasn’t functioning – now all I have to do is find out who else knows that fact about the accident, because if nobody else knows but Eaton, then I think we’ve got a murderer on our hands – but with absolutely no way to prove it. The thing that really worries me is Eaton’s implying that Morgan will keep his mouth shut. Could that mean that Joe did the dirty work and is keeping quiet because he thinks he can beat the case and get a big payoff from Eaton when the insurance and probate money come in?

  I’ve been dealing with criminals for over twenty years now, and I think I can tell when a client is lying to me. Unless he’s really a good actor, I don’t think Joe’s lying. I think he’s really innocent of this whole thing. Jack Bibberman is going to have some work to do, because I want to know everything about Eaton’s whereabouts during the time those three Suburbans were being serviced at the dealership.

  Returning to the boat, I see that the NJPD has returned a package to me. It’s the stuff we sent them on that corpse in the trunk - the bullet, picture, dental records, and fingerprints. Also included is a note thanking us for our efforts and saying that he’s not anywhere in their system. Another dead end. Myra always thought that it was a back East case, so she never got her department too involved in it. I don’t want to bother her, so I send a message to the kid, telling her to use some connections with the local uniforms that eat at the restaurant every day. Maybe they can find out something about this stiff. Sometimes one police agency can have info that the others don’t have. One of these days they should figure out some way for them to talk to each other by computer. Maybe then the closed-to-unsolved file ratio will increase.

  A sure sign of success in many circles is having your last name spoken as only a vowel. To qualify for this distinction one must meet several criteria. First, your last name must be a minimum of four syllables and be too troublesome to be pronounced in any normal conversation. Second, the name must end in a vowel. Third, you must have a large stomach and accentuate it by wearing golf shirts - and you get extra points for being of Mediterranean ancestry. The owner of I.R.S. meets all of the requirements. He is referred to as Billy ‘Z,’ has quite a colorful background and probably looks very much like Tony Soprano. Our own Jack B.’s title is exempt, because I’m the only one using it.

  In the years of his life that would normally be dedicated to high school, Billy was a door-to-door canvasser for an aluminum siding company. In just a few years, he became the owner of his own home improvement firm and was indicted for defrauding homeowners. They alleged that his salesmen were instructed to use what was called ‘the model home pitch,’ whereby a customer was led to believe that the work on their home would be free. They were told that signing the sales contract was merely a formality, because payments for their five thousand dollar home improvement job would be made from commissions on other sales in the neighborhood. At one time, he had over twenty ‘tin men’ selling jobs throughout New Jersey. For some strange reason, none of the defrauded victims would testify against him, so there was no conviction.

  After his acquittal, Billy entered the business of high finance - he opened up a loan company that charged exorbitant interest and could have been affiliated with showbiz, because of their ‘break a leg’ motto some of his collectors were known for. He specialized in loans to owners of construction companies who had difficulty paying their gambling debts. As a result of a brilliant system of bartering, Billy Z was able to build a large warehouse for less than one-tenth of the normal construction cost. When his debtors couldn’t pay their weekly installments, Billy would take it out in lumber and other building supplies.

  With a large empty warehouse, Billy’s next idea was to fill it with stolen automobiles that had been recovered. Billy collected a reward from the insurance company for returning each vehicle to them prior to the time when the policyholders were due to be paid for their loss. Unfortunately, some of his street personnel suffered from ‘pre-mature recovery,’ and were arrested for picking up vehicles before they were reported stolen – a troublesome technicality. When the insurance companies decided to stop paying rewards to him for return of stolen cars, coincidentally there was a drop in the auto theft rate in New Jersey. Billy kept adding to his inventory and decided to start selling them on the open market. In addition to recoveries, he was buying ‘lemons’ that had been re-purchased by the factory from unsatisfied customers.

  When Jack B. called several of the insurance companies that Billy Z has business relationships with, he learned that the companies dealt with two different I.R.S. firms. In one of them, the letters stood for Insurance Recovered Vehicles. The other use of the acronym was for Interstate Repossession and Salvage, a firm that dealt in completely wrecked cars to be crushed for salvage purposes.

  While sorting through the maze of companies that Billy Z operates, the details of an elaborate scheme started to surface. The records showed that I.R.S. only dealt with Toyota Camry’s and Honda Accords. These are probably the two most popular cars sold in the United States and they therefore have the highest theft and accident rates. By hacking into New Jersey’s Vehicle Records, one of our office staff was able to determine a curious coincidence in the I.R.S. purchasing quantities. They buy the exact same number of wrecks as the total number of returned lemons and stolen cars recovered. Also interesting
is the fact that they register the lemons purchased first, and then the wrecks to be crushed.

  Taking all of this data, along with the coincidence into consideration, I give Jack B. the most important assignment of all. He’s to call the owners of every wrecked, recovered stolen, and lemon that I.R.S. purchased during the past two months, and ask only one question: “what color was your car?” When all the answers are collected, he’s to make a chart that compares them to a chart of the I.R.S. registrations with the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Department.

  Jack starts on his new task immediately. The thing he really likes about it is that he can do it from the comfort of his living room. Not being the type of person who likes to get up early in the morning, on this assignment he can make most of the calls after four in the afternoon. The calls are all being made to the East Coast, so between four and five here is dinnertime there, with a higher success rate of getting the requested information. I have a hunch I know what Billy Z is up to, but can’t be sure without Jack’s completed charts. Finally the information is complete, and we discover a series of amazing things taking place that would rival the tricks of a world-class magician: the cars are changing colors – and not one ounce of paint is being used. The color change is done in Billy Z’s computer.

  If you look at a vehicle description on any state’s ownership paperwork, you will see that it contains the Vehicle Identification Number, or ‘VIN.’ It also will have the year of manufacture, model, and assigned license plate number. It will not have the vehicle’s color, and this lack of statistical information is what gave Billy Z what he must have thought was his most brilliant idea of all. He would switch the VIN from one vehicle with another to enhance its sale value.

  Like California, quite a few states have enacted legislation that requires manufacturers who re-purchase ‘lemons’ from customers to label or ‘brand’ the title with the information that the vehicle was turned back due to a failure to perform required repairs. This label stays with a vehicle’s title, no matter what State it’s subsequently registered in, and greatly reduces the wholesale value – sometimes as much as fifty percent, notwithstanding the fact that the factory offers an additional warranty.

  After putting together the pieces of Billy Z’s jigsaw puzzle, it looks like he’s buying a total wreck that matches the titled description of each lemon and recovered stolen that he purchased. He then switches Vehicle Identification Numbers, using the wrecked VINs on the lemons, and visa versa.

  The salvage yard doesn’t care if the car being crushed was a lemon or not – all they’re interested in is the weight. By buying a total wreck and then selling it for junk, Billy has the opportunity to increase the value of each lemon by as much as five to eight thousand dollars, and make it look like the lemon was crushed and the total wreck was miraculously restored to a sellable condition.

  Toyota and Honda cars rate quite high with customers, so the lemon rate is quite low. Billy makes up for this by putting VINs from the wrecks onto the stolen cars that he buys at police auctions, thereby raising their values considerably also.

  Billy didn’t want any trouble in his back yard, so the re-numbered lemons were sold out of state, to dealers like Stuart, who thought that their deals were too good to be true. This is a great ironic twist. Stuart was upset because he thought his Town Car was a lemon. He never realized that most of the cars he was buying and selling were probably lemons.

  Jack B. works for Stuart and I don’t want him to keep this secret from his friend and employer, so to avoid any awkward situation, I’m purposely keeping Jack out of the loop on this final analysis of Billy Z’s business practices. I’ll take care of Mister Z in my own inimitable style. In the meantime, Stuart should be told that he may have some lemons mixed in with the recovered stolen cars. I arrange to meet with him, and this time dinner is on me at the Charthouse. It’s a beautiful warm summer evening and they’ve got some new dining furniture on the patio, which is less than ten feet from the seawall and the boats… and from there I can see my beautiful Grand Banks. If I see George walking by, I’ll invite him to join us for dinner.

  Stuart gives his Lincoln Town Car to the car-parking valet and we decide to have a drink at the bar while waiting for our outside table to be cleaned off and prepared. Once inside the restaurant I tell my usual waiter Brian that he should prepare my special chopped salad, which consists of the standard lettuce and tomato with some extra garbanzo beans, white onion, garlic, anchovies, and mushrooms. He does a great job of making it. Instead of the usual salad dressing, he brings a small cup of crushed garlic and olive oil. I’m sure the extra few dollars in his tip is a major inducement for this kind personal service I get here.

  Once Stuart and I are both seated at the bar I try to start as casually as possible, because the things he’s going to hear might upset him. “Stu, I want to talk to you about lemons.”

  “Thanks, Pete, but we’ve already had this discussion, and I don’t see any reason to re-hash things. It’s true that Vinnie did a little work on the Town Car. If his screwing around under the dashboard caused my gas gauge to malfunction, I can live with it.” I knew it. I always thought there must have been some way that Vinnie was involved. I’ll bet that Stuart was probably trying to have the car’s odometer disconnected, so his frequent trips to Las Vegas wouldn’t put him over the car’s factory warranty limit.

  “That’s a healthy attitude Stu, but I’m not talking about the Lincoln… I’m talking about all those cars you’ve been buying from back East and having trucked out here.” This takes him by surprise. I wait until he’s had time to finish his first drink, because he’ll take my news a little easier with some booze in his system.

  I give him a full report. Everything that Jack found out, all about Billy Z’s background, conversations with the owners about color, the fact that half the owners talked to didn’t have their car stolen – they were either bought-back lemons or total wrecks. Stuart doesn’t say a word. He just sits there quietly, sipping on his drink and taking it all in. When I finish my report, he remains silent for a while, and then finally gives me his opinion.

  “Good. Really good. I’ve got to hand it to him. The plan is a stroke of genius. I’m sorry that I was on the short end of the stick, but I have faith in you to straighten everything out. I just think that the son-of-a-gun deserves some credit for thinking that plan up.”

  I’m amazed that he’s taking this so calmly. I guess that Stuart’s devious mind realizes that it takes talent to recognize genius, and Stuart recognizes it in Billy Z’s plan. “Okay, Pete, what do we do to him? I want to stay in business and keep buying cars at a decent price, so let’s not queer the deal… but we’ve got to let him know that we’re on to his scam and he’s got to make it right for me.”

  “I’m working on a plan Stu, but first of all you have to be protected from actions by your own unhappy customers. Now that we have the real VINs on the cars you bought, we can get the answers as to what each car’s problem was and why the manufacturer’s bought it back. Once that’s done, we can enter that info on each of your customer’s files. If any one of them contacts you with a problem like that, we won’t be able to get any satisfaction out of the manufacturer, because Billy Z altered the VIN. That means he’ll have to take care of the problem himself. This scenario is unlikely, because I’ve been told that when the factory re-purchases a car they fix the problem in a way that the dealer was unable to, so the lemons you sold that were actually in pretty good condition.”

  “What about the recovered stolens?”

  “That’s another story. Their warranties were also voided by Billy Z’s alterations, but being such well-manufactured cars to begin with, you shouldn’t have any problems. Just in case though, I’d make some connection with a Japanese car repair place, just to keep your customers happy if some problems crop up. I’m sure we can convince Billy Z to make some reparations.”

  A dangerous sign appears, indicated by the expression on Stuart’s face. It’s like a light
bulb going off over his head.

  “Peter, I’ve got it. We’ll file a class action against Billy Z.”

  “Nice idea Stu. That’ll give him some incentive to keep selling cars to you.”

  “Can’t we make it part of the settlement that he has to keep providing me with product?”

  “Sure, after we clean out every penny he has to his name, I’m sure he’ll want to keep buying cars to ship out here for you.”

  “Okay, we won’t put that requirement in there… do you think we’ve got a case?”

  “Sure you’ve got a case… if you’ve bought thirty-five cars from him with altered VINs, he’s defrauded you a bunch of times, but you’ve made money on each of the sales. How big are your damages?”

  “Aren’t I entitled to something just for being defrauded?”

  “Yeah, but it probably wouldn’t be enough to cover the losses you’d incur by being put out of the used car business.”

  “Then what about a class action on behalf of every person he sold an altered car to?”

  I hate to admit it, but he might have a point there. The only problem is collectibility. If Billy Z is as sharp as Stuart gives him credit for, he’s probably got everything in someone else’s name. Even if we got a judgment against him, it would be next to impossible to collect on it.

  “Stu, you’re probably right. There may be a good class action against Billy, but there are five things to consider in every suit like this, and I think we fall short on the last two.”

  “Okay professor, lay it out for me. I’m gonna be a lawyer in three more years, so it’s time I learned about it.”