Bell v. Graham

SHINN, P. J.

Defendants William M. Graham and Simie Statom appeal from a judgment in a nonjury trial awarding plaintiffs $361 actual damages, and $750 punitive damages, in an action for deceit. The ground of the appeal is insufficiency of the evidence to sustain the findings. Although defendants answered jointly, Statom had no part in the transaction. We shall refer to Graham as the defendant.

The following facts were revealed by the evidence: On or about July 20, 1948, plaintiffs purchased from defendant a 1948 Cadillac club coupé for a price of $5,611.44; defendant was a used car dealer; before the sale was arranged plaintiffs had told defendant that they did not want to buy a used ear; defendant represented to plaintiffs that the car in question was “brand new”; he opened the trunk and exhibited the spare tire and the tools still wrapped in paper; he called attention to the “brand new tires” and it looked to Mr. Bell like a new car; he noticed that the speedometer registered around 70 miles and inquired about this and defendant told him that this mileage had been registered while he showed the car to one other person, but that the ear was absolutely new and had been shipped out from Detroit. Plaintiffs believed these statements. In the ensuing six months plaintiffs drove the car 1,800 miles; it gave trouble and defendant made some repairs; when more trouble developed defendant, on plaintiffs’ insistence, took the car to a Cadillac agency where plaintiffs were told by a mechanic that it was not a new car, but had been driven far more than 1,800 miles. The mechanic testified that in his opinion it had been driven at least 5,000 miles. Plaintiffs then learned that the car had been sold originally in Detroit on or about March 30, 1948.

Defendant Graham testified he had bought the car from a man named Britt, a used ear dealer in Little Rock, Arkansas, and that after it was shipped to him in July, 1948, he used it for several weeks. When asked if the speedometer registered more than 7,000 miles at the time he received it, he answered, “I presume so. I don’t know. I can’t recall at the present time what mileage was on the ear.” Graham testified that he told plaintiffs the car was “just like new” but that he did not represent it to be a new car. He also testified that the

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prices of secondhand Cadillacs were considerably higher than the dealers’ prices for new cars.