Coly v Yorke & Sons Auto Inc. & Alive Auto Repair Inc.
Annotate this CaseDecided on May 11, 2023
Civil Court of the City of New York, Bronx County
Georges Coly, Plaintiff,
against
Yorke & Sons Auto Inc. and Alive Auto Repair Inc., Defendants.
Index No. CV-024344-19/BX
Plaintiff Georges Coly, Pro se
Ashlee Crawford, J.
In this 2019 action, plaintiff Georges Coly asserts a claim of replevin for the return of his 2015 Chevrolet Tahoe bearing VIN 1GNSCBKCXFR160546, as well as $1,200 in lost wages resulting from the allegedly unlawful detention of his vehicle. On May 9, 2023, the Court conducted a lengthy inquest on the record, during which it heard testimony from plaintiff and considered plaintiff's documentary evidence. At the conclusion of the inquest, plaintiff orally amended his demand for damages to include $100,000 in lost wages, plus interest calculated at 20%, and a new 2023 Chevrolet Tahoe to be funded by defendants.[FN1]
Findings of Fact
Plaintiff's testimony was replete with substantial gaps and occasional inconsistencies. According to plaintiff, he was involved in an automobile accident on November 18, 2018, which damaged the front end of his vehicle and caused the airbag to deploy. The following day, on November 19, 2018, he brought his vehicle to defendant Alive Auto Repair for repairs and was instructed to return the next day to receive an estimate. On November 20th, plaintiff returned to Alive and apparently was dissatisfied with the estimate; he claims he told Alive not to repair his vehicle, but also that he could not take his vehicle that day and would return another day to retrieve it.
By plaintiff's own account, he returned to retrieve his vehicle more than one month, but possibly a few months, later. Alive informed plaintiff it was charging $65 per day to store the vehicle and demanded payment from plaintiff as a condition of releasing the vehicle to him. Plaintiff rebuffed the request for payment and left without his vehicle. On or about May 17, [*2]2019, about six months after plaintiff first brought his vehicle to Alive, plaintiff paid Alive $300 toward the storage fees, but Alive refused to return the vehicle given a then-outstanding balance of several thousand dollars. Plaintiff claims he did not owe storage fees to Alive, because he had not entered into a written or oral contract for their payment.
Although the record is unclear on this score, it seems that defendant Yorke & Sons Auto Inc., a neighboring business of Alive, may have stepped into the shoes of Alive at some point and assumed possession of the vehicle. Plaintiff produced a 2019 "notice of lien and sale" reflecting that Yorke & Sons claimed a $10,000 lien against the vehicle calculated as follows: $5,731 for repairs; $6,630 for storage charges from August 27, 2019, through December 6, 2019 (102 days at $65 per day); and a lien fee of $575, totaling $12,936. The notice indicated that an additional lien was being claimed for storage charges from December 7, 2019, through the date of sale. The notice clearly warned that plaintiff had until December 17, 2019, to redeem the vehicle, otherwise it would be offered for sale at public auction on January 3, 2020. The name and contact information of the auctioneer is clearly provided, and the notice reflects plaintiff's name and correct address. When the Court questioned whether plaintiff had received the notice of lien and sale prior to the auction, plaintiff equivocated significantly before ultimately stating that he had not. The Court did not find this denial credible. Plaintiff further stated that he never contacted the auctioneer or defendants prior to the noticed sale of his vehicle.
Plaintiff further testified that defendants were wrongfully driving his car when it was supposed to be stored for repair. He presented a "pre-penalty notice of unpaid violation" from the City Department of Finance, related to a January 1, 2021 violation for missing plates,[FN2] as well as a February 3, 2021 receipt for plaintiff's payment of that violation. Plaintiff also claimed that on May 19, 2022, he observed his vehicle in front of Yorke & Sons' lot, and that when he stopped to take photographs of his car, a group of men hurled expletives and spat at him. Plaintiff called the police, who responded to the scene. According to plaintiff, an officer spoke with Regina Yorke, the owner of Yorke & Sons, who either claimed, or showed the officer paperwork establishing, she was the rightful owner of the vehicle. Plaintiff indicated that the police officer could not determine the rightful owner and departed without a police report being filed.
With respect to plaintiff's claim for lost wages, plaintiff provided weekly income summaries from Lyft for a few weeks in 2022, but did not provide comparator proof of his income during the time the vehicle was in his possession.
Conclusions of Law
"To prevail on a claim of replevin, a plaintiff must demonstrate that he or she owns specified property, or is lawfully entitled to possess it, and that the defendant has unlawfully withheld the property from the plaintiff" (Stewart Family LLC v Stewart, 184 AD3d 487, 490 [1st Dept 2020]). The Court finds that plaintiff failed to meet his burden under this standard. While the record shows that plaintiff owned the vehicle at the time he brought it to Alive, and that he requested a return of his vehicle, Alive did not unlawfully detain the vehicle. Alive stored the vehicle for more than one month at plaintiff's explicit request and was entitled to [*3]charge the daily storage fee of $65, which is reasonable. Thus, Alive had a garage keeper's lien upon the vehicle in the sum of the unpaid storage fees, and lawfully detained the vehicle until payment would be made (see Lien Law § 184[1]; National Union Fire Ins. Co. of Pittsburgh, Pa. v Eland Motor Car Co., Inc., 85 NY2d 725, 730-31 [1995]).
Plaintiff also did not meet his burden as against Yorke & Sons. As indicated, the Court did not find credible plaintiff's denial of timely receipt of the notice of lien and sale, and plaintiff did not challenge the validity of the lien following receipt of the notice of lien and sale and prior to the sale (see Lien Law § 201-a). Plaintiff stated his belief that the vehicle was in fact sold at auction, as circumstantial evidence also demonstrates. Upon this record, the Court concludes that ownership of the vehicle lawfully transferred from plaintiff to the new owner, and plaintiff has no rightful claim for the return of the vehicle.
Finally, plaintiff's claim for lost wages resulting from the unlawful detention of the vehicle fails as a matter of law with the replevin claim, as well as on the facts due to lack of proof.
For the foregoing reasons, it is hereby
ORDERED that plaintiff's claims are DISMISSED with prejudice and this matter is disposed.
This constitutes the decision and order of the Court.
HON. ASHLEE CRAWFORD, J.C.C.Dated: May 11, 2023
Bronx, New York Footnotes
Footnote 1:The Court explained to plaintiff that even if he established money damages, the Court's jurisdiction is capped at $50,000.
Footnote 2:Plaintiff stated that he surrendered his plates to the Department of Motor Vehicles at a certain point.
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