Court Case Observed a Civil

Court Case observed a civil suit charging odometer fraud in state court. The plaintiff claimed that a dealership that sold her a used car either knew or should have known that the odometer had been disconnected. The plaintiff did not accuse the dealership of disconnecting the odometer. The claim was that someone had disconnected it and that they should have known. The plaintiff said that she did not notice that the odometer was not turning over for a few days.

When she did, she took it back to the dealership and tried to revoke the sale, because she had assumed it was a relatively low mileage car (58,XXX miles), but with the odometer not working, there was no way to be sure of that. The dealership pointed out to her that since the odometer was not working, on that car the speedometer was not working either, and she should have noticed that.

The plaintiff's lawyer made the point that if the plaintiff should have noticed it, then so should have the defendant. However, the plaintiff lost the case. The defendant's lawyer produced evidence that the first check the plaintiff had used to pay for the car had bounced. They implied that the plaintiff never intended to pay for the car.

The plaintiff took the stand and explained that she had just opened a new checking account and that the bank had coded her checks with one account number but that the deposit slips had a one-digit error. The money did not go into her account for this reason, something she found out.