Slow Grind

The wheels of justice grind slowly, but they eventually get there. This month we have a collection of stories — updates on two old cases, plus a trio of new ones, in brief.

C-type-replica litigation

“Legal Files” reported in May 2021 that Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) was garnering a lot of hobbyist animosity by suing Karl and Ann-Christine Magnusson in a Swedish court. JLR claimed that the Magnussons were violating its copyright of the C-type shape by building a replica car in their garage. JLR asked the court to order the replica destroyed and the Magnussons to pay substantial damages, reported to be in the neighborhood of a million dollars.

The Magnussons defended on the basis that JLR’s copyright claims were bogus. Several JLR executives had built and raced their own C-type replicas, and JLR had actually provided enormous assistance to the Magnussons until it had a change of heart.

JLR won at the trial court level, and the Magnussons appealed, looking to a GoFundMe account to finance the suit.

In a recent development, the Magnussons prevailed in the SVEA Court of Appeal. I have not been able to obtain a copy of the court’s opinion yet, but it has been reported that the appeals court decided that JLR had consented to the construction of the Magnussons’ replica and that private use of copyrighted property is not unlawful. As a result, JLR may also be liable for the Magnussons’ legal fees, estimated to be about the same million dollars JLR was seeking. How’s that for karmic payback?

JLR said it is pleased that the appeals court decided that it did hold copyright protection for the C-type design, which would give it control over replication for commercial purposes. But without reading the actual court opinion, we can’t tell if that is true or an overstatement. The uncertainty stems from not knowing whether the appeals court decided that, or simply assumed it. The private-use concept would have won the case for the Magnussons either way. Without any need to actually decide that point, there may not be any precedent made here.

We can expect the appeals court decision will exacerbate enthusiast hostility towards JLR, which will likely try to use this decision to chase after other Jaguar replica builders. More stories may be coming.

Corvette saved from crusher

Last June, we reported that Richard Martinez fulfilled a lifelong dream when he purchased a 1959 Corvette from a dealer in Indiana. When he had it inspected for licensing in his home state of Kansas, the state police confiscated the Corvette because its VIN plate had been altered, and threatened to destroy the car.

The litigation attracted the attention of a state representative, who introduced a bill that would create an exemption for cars whose VIN plates were altered in the course of a restoration, as was the case here. The bill passed and became law, but Kansas persisted with its litigation, refusing to give up.

The Kansas Court of Appeals recently ruled in favor of Martinez, ordering the state to give him back the car plus $20,000 in damages, which is the largest amount that can be awarded against the state under Kansas law.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t make Martinez whole. The Corvette has been sitting outdoors for the six years the saga played out in court, and needs more help than $20,000 is going to pay for.

Supply-chain woes

The pandemic hit the auto industry hard. Computer chip shortages stalled new-car production, and used-car prices skyrocketed. The same supply-chain problems interrupted the flow of spare parts, idling many cars.

Last summer, Alex Magliozzi had a minor accident with his BMW M340i. The car was about two years into a three-year lease and it needed a new steering rack. Surprisingly, BMW steering racks had become unobtainium.

In September, Magliozzi was told that he was number 21 on the wait list. Unfortunately, BMW was only able to produce about two steering racks per month and had a 92-unit back order. That math indicated that Magliozzi couldn’t expect to get his BMW back on the road until this summer, about a month before his lease was scheduled to expire.

Magliozzi was incensed about having to keep making his $750-per-month lease payment. Fortunately, he wasn’t forced to walk, as BMW was picking up the cost of his Chevy Malibu rental.

We can hope that BMW has been able to beat its estimates and that Magliozzi has been able to drive his M340i once again, but the experience has probably reduced the possibility that he will replace the car with another BMW later this year.

Stolen car sold by dealer

A Portland, OR, resident’s 1999 Subaru (the favored marque here) was stolen. It had been parked on the street with its title and other personal documents inside — clearly not the smartest owner. She reported the vehicle stolen to the police and to the DMV the next day.

After a year without any progress, she went to the DMV to get a replacement title for the Subaru, just in case it turned up. When she was there, the DMV clerk noticed that a local used-car dealer had sold the car to a buyer in Hawaii two weeks after it had been stolen. To make things worse, the Hawaii DMV had already issued a new title to the new owner. Neither the Oregon DMV, nor the shipping company, nor the Hawaii DMV had discovered that the Subaru had been reported stolen.

Portland’s KOIN 6 investigated the story and pressed a DMV spokesperson about how this could have happened. “When there is a stolen vehicle, people try to point blame,” he responded, “but the bottom line is there are bad people and they’re smart, and sometimes there’s nothing you can do to stop them from getting away with it.”

No doubt the Subaru owner is entitled to get her car back. Unfortunately, I think it’s going to be on her dime to get it back home from Hawaii.

Do not leave your title in your car, folks.

The power of tenacity

Let’s finish with a stolen-car story that has a happy ending.

In 1969, Bob Russell bought a 1967 Austin Healey BJ8 while he was a graduate student at Temple University in Philadelphia. He drove the car daily, and he and his wife had their first date in the car. Typical student-finance issues prompted him to drop his theft insurance coverage, which quickly turned out to be a huge mistake when the car was stolen.

Bob kept the title, and continually checked out every Healey he ran across. He pored over classified ads looking for his car. When the internet arrived, he started checking online ads. One day, he found his car for sale on eBay Motors, listed by a Los Angeles car dealership.

The dealer was uncooperative, claiming it had purchased the car on a New York title from its 40-year owner. The dealer insisted it was entitled to keep the car, but did offer to sell it to Bob at a discount. The Los Angeles County Sheriff couldn’t help because there was no current stolen-car report on the Healey.

Bob tried to get the Philadelphia police to issue a new stolen-car report. After digging deep into the National Crime Information Center database, it found an archived theft report that showed that the New York title had been issued with one digit of the VIN transposed, which hid the error. It issued a new stolen-car report, and the Los Angeles County Sheriff used that to seize the Healey and return it to Bob, 42 long years after it had been stolen.

Bob’s Healey is an example of how stolen cars disappear. This one was retitled with a VIN error and sold to an unsuspecting owner who kept it and drove it for 40 years. It could have stayed that way for another 40 if it hadn’t been for Bob’s tenacity and luck in finding it listed for sale with its VIN identified. ♦

John Draneas is an attorney in Oregon and has been SCM’s “Legal Files” columnist since 2003. His recently published book The Best of Legal Files can be purchased on our website. John can be contacted at john@draneaslaw.com. His comments are general in nature and are not intended to substitute for consultation with an attorney.