By DAVE DANFORTH Daily Press Staff Writer
A lawsuit against an auto dealership for failing to diagnose a car’s problem must carry specific proof to be successful, a Santa Monica judge reminded an unlucky pair in court Friday.
Carmelo and John Amoroso — father and son — sued Honda of Santa Monica. They blamed the dealership’s mechanic for failing to discover the cause of their 1996 Prelude’s chronic overheating. They said by the time another dealer found the problem, they had to replace the engine at a cost of $3,277.
But when neither father nor son could state in court why the car had overheated, Judge Julius Title strongly hinted he would rule against them.
“What did they do wrong?” Title asked about Honda of Santa Monica. He said the father and son had failed to show that an earlier and apparently unrelated repair job was responsible for the car’s problems.
It was one hot car. The Amorosos, from Agoura, Calif., brought the overheating Prelude to the Honda dealership no fewer than six times between May and December of last year, they testified. They also took it to another Honda dealership in Thousand Oaks twice in an apparently unsuccessful attempt to get it fixed.
A third dealership finally fixed it by replacing the engine. But that dealership wrote a note suggesting that whatever caused the overheating, the heat had probably caused the water and coolant to mix together, harming the engine.
The Amorosos apparently confused the judge and their case by suggesting that an earlier repair by the Honda shop in Santa Monica — for the timing belt and water pump — had somehow caused the problem.
“You can’t tell me that the work they did caused the overheating,” Judge Title declared. John Amoroso based the case on a guarantee by the Honda shop that “we’re going to make it good.”
“They didn’t fix it. Their not fixing it destroyed it.” — — CARMELO AMOROSO Plaintiff
But Honda technician Joey Abe said in court that he couldn’t get the car to “duplicate” the overheating when it was in his shop. The only further bill to the Amorosos, for $254, came when he decided to replace the fan switch and thermostat as precautionary measures.
Judge Title suggested he would award the Amorosos only the $254. He said the Honda dealership was liable only for any damage it clearly caused. When the Amorosos couldn’t prove that the Honda shop had hurt the car, their case apparently fizzled.
“They didn’t fix it,” complained Carmelo Amoroso. “Their not fixing it destroyed it.”
Had they argued that point up front, they might have convinced Judge Title. The Amarosos did not argue clearly that a Honda dealership, apparent experts on Hondas, should have been able to duplicate and diagnose the overheating problem before it ruined the engine. Instead, they became involved in a long discourse with the judge about what caused the overheating and whether the original unrelated repair job had anything to do with it.
Had they pursued that path, however, they probably would have needed an “expert” to testify that the overheating actually damaged the engine and that the Honda shop should have figured it out.
Judge Title heard the case “de novo” on Friday — a re-trial of an earlier case. He will likely issue his formal ruling Monday. The judge is known for relentless and pointed questioning as he seeks to cut to the chase.
The Amorosos appeared to start off poorly when they began with a chronology of their car’s problems without stating their case, or “cause of action.”
At one point, John Amoroso began blaming the Honda dealership by saying how he “felt.”
But Judge Title cut him off. “What you feel is not the issue,” he snapped.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on July 6, 2002. Read the original PDF.