Service customer sues store for loaning out her vehicle

An empty chips bag and crumbs, a low gas tank and receipts from a Dollar Tree and Stop & Shop supermarket in Connecticut were just some of the clues that something suspicious had occurred while a Rhode Island dealership was supposed to have been fixing Sabrina Fuller's 2015 Nissan Rogue.

Fuller had bought the Rogue new at Stateline Nissan in East Providence and had taken it to the store in June 2017 for body work after scraping the side of the vehicle on a pylon at a gas station, according to her lawyer, John Longo, of Providence, R.I.

Other clues were the three-week delay in completing the work, the store's failure to do the detailing Fuller had ordered and equivocal comments by then-service adviser Andy Gill. Those clues led to Fuller's August lawsuit accusing Stateline Nissan of loaning her vehicle to an unwitting Connecticut customer for a week.

Pretrial discovery is underway in the Providence County Superior Court suit against Stateline Nissan and Gill, claiming that Gill, who no longer works at the store, lied to police investigating Fuller's complaint, Longo said. The suit also alleges that the general manager was "complicit in the fraud" because he failed to fire Gill "despite knowing Stateline had loaned Fuller's car to another customer."

The dealership might have gotten away with it, the suit said, if only it had cleaned the vehicle before returning it to Fuller.

Evelyn Vargas, the Connecticut customer, told Stateline Nissan's executive general manager, Alvaro Vieira, in an email, "You compromised both of us as I am not an authorized driver of her vehicle and was not properly insured and also HIPPA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) policy was violated as I had access to all [Fuller's] personal information. Not a good situation and illegal and very irresponsible."

The company's answer "denies the allegations of improper conduct." Dealership lawyer Robert Shea, of Brockton, Mass., declined to comment, and Vieira didn't respond to email and voicemail messages from Automotive News.

The suit alleges deceptive trade practices, misappropriation, fraudulent conduct and breach of contract. It also seeks punitive and compensatory damages. The court hasn't set a trial date.

Longo said emails from Vargas made Vieira and other dealership personnel aware of the problem even before Fuller figured it out and complained to the store and to police.

"My gut tells me an employee at Gill's relatively low level would not dare to do this without some kind of blessing or approval of higher-ups in the dealership. This guy didn't give someone a $25 gift card," Longo said. "He did something big."