Case Result:
Two different plaintiffs had auto fraud cases against a major insurance company. In both cases, the vehicles purchased were involved in a prior collision. As a result of the collisions, the vehicles were treated as a salvage or total loss by the insurance company, but this information was never reported to the state’s DMV The insurance company never obtained a salvage or branded title, or a "rebuilt" title on either vehicle. Both vehicles were the subject of inadequate, improper, incomplete and/or potentially dangerous repair work and/or that while repaired wreck damage is generally undetectable by consumers, these repairs are obvious to persons in the business of buying and selling used vehicles as such. To make matters worse, this is just two cases of thousands of times the insurance company did this with other vehicles. Any vehicle purchased with a "salvage" or "rebuilt" Certificate of Title is worth a small fraction of the retail value of an non-branded, non-wrecked similar vehicle.
In December 2007, the matter was resolved by a cash payment acceptable to all parties. The terms of the settlement are confidential.