The Court of Appeals of Minnesota has affirmed a grant of summary judgment in favor of the plaintiff in a lawsuit seeking the return of a Mercedes-Benz from a defendant who stopped making his monthly payments, and used the occasion to call out fabricated legal citations in the defendant’s appellate brief.
The background: The defendant financed the purchase of a 2021 Mercedes-Benz E-Class for $96,726.83 back in 2021, agreeing to monthly payments of $1,701.07 under a contract that gave the plaintiff the right to repossess the vehicle if he stopped paying.
- Two years ago, the plaintiff sued to recover the vehicle, alleging the defendant had missed payments, had not cured the default after being notified, and owed a balance of $71,818.68.
- The plaintiff moved for summary judgment, backed by a payment history showing missed payments. The defendant, representing himself at the time, submitted two affidavits generally denying he was in default, claiming he was in “full compliance” with the contract and that he had signed two extension agreements, but offering no specific evidence of payments made.
- The defendant later hired an attorney, and at a hearing last August, with the defendant out of the country, both sides asked the judge to put the case on hold so the defendant could bring the account current, agreeing that if he did not, the court would sign the plaintiff’s proposed order.
- The defendant did not bring the account current, and in October a District Court judge in Minnesota entered judgment ordering the vehicle returned to the plaintiff. The defendant, again representing himself, appealed.
The ruling: The Appeals Court affirmed the judgment in favor of the plaintiff.
- Judge Jennifer Frisch of the Court of Appeals of Minnesota wrote that the defendant’s arguments were forfeited because they were presented in “summary and conclusory form” without citations to applicable law, or were raised for the first time on appeal or in his reply brief, including his claims that he did not receive adequate notice of the default and that his own attorney made unauthorized concessions at the hearing.
- Even setting forfeiture aside, Judge Frisch found no genuine dispute for trial. The payment history reflected numerous missed payments over roughly a two-year stretch, and the defendant’s affidavits offered only general denials. “Mere averments and conclusory assertions” are not enough to defeat summary judgment, the judge wrote, noting the defendant’s own attorney had acknowledged at the hearing that he “missed payments” and the account was not current.
- The judge closed by addressing fabricated authority in the defendant’s brief, which contained three citations to cases that do not exist and numerous propositions of law not attributable to the cases he did cite. “The submission of incorrect, misleading, or nonexistent content to this, or any other, court is improper, unacceptable, and an abuse of the judicial process,” Judge Frisch wrote.
