Over the past few years, Glendale Nissan, owned by the Sage Automotive Group, had to settle more than half a dozen car dealer fraud cases in which the consumers were represented by Brennan, Wiener & Associates. Yet, in spite of its continuing courtroom woes, Glendale Nissan continued to employ trickery and deceit against some of its customers, particularly Spanish-speaking consumers, when selling or leasing cars.
Rather than clean up its dishonest dealer practices effectively, Glendale Nissan decided to solve the problem by bringing a frivolous lawsuit against Brennan, Wiener & Associates for alleged unfair business practices. Glendale Nissan paid big bucks to hire the Kulik, Gottesman firm in Encino to swamp BW & A with mounds of paper. Glendale Nissan also paid big bucks to hire a so-called expert witness, Fred Zacharias, to testify that Brennan, Wiener & Associates could not call themselves dealer fraud “experts” and “specialists”. Mr. Zacharias was never able to contest that Brennan, Wiener & Associates has successfully handled numerous car dealer fraud cases and has a consistent winning record of sizeable verdicts and settlements which is among the best in California. We at Brennan, Wiener & Associates sincerely hope that Glendale Nissan had paid Mr. Zacharias in advance before the court completely disregarded his preposterous and silly opinion.
As one would expect, when Judge Helen Bendix of the Los Angeles Superior Court reviewed all of the papers in this case, she completely threw out the complaint against Brennan, Wiener & Associates.
The moral of the story: if you’re a dealer and if you have a history of dishonest or deceitful dealings with consumers, the most effective thing you can do is clean up your own act. Suing the law firms that represent these consumers is a dead-end alley, particularly when they’re as good as we are at Brennan, Wiener & Associates.