YOUNGSTOWN High court rules on vehicle sale

The dealership will finally get its money, and the couple will get the title to the vehicle.
By BOB JACKSON
VINDICATOR COURTHOUSE REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- A ruling by the Ohio Supreme Court marks the end of the road for a city couple ordered to pay for a vehicle they'd driven for five years without paying the dealer.
The high court declined to hear an appeal from Jerome and Louise Hayes of Alameda Avenue, who bought a 1996 GMC Suburban from Youngstown Buick Co. in May 1996. The decision was handed down March 7 but not received in the Mahoning County clerk of courts' office until Thursday.
The couple took ownership of the vehicle but did not pay for it because of a dispute with the dealership over whether a price had been agreed upon.
Dave Sweeney, Youngstown Buick president, said he's grateful that the dealership was upheld in court three times and that he thinks justice was served.
"Anybody has the right to sue someone," Sweeney said. "It's up to the courts to decide who is right."
he Hayeses' attorney, Percy Squire, said the high court's ruling is the end of the road for the legal dispute. He said it's not true, though, that the couple never paid for the vehicle.
Squire said that as soon as the couple was sued in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court, they paid cash to the court in the amount Youngstown Buick said it was owed for the vehicle. The court then held the cash in escrow until the dispute could be settled, he said.
The money will now be released to the dealership and the couple will get the vehicle's title, which had been held in the clerk of courts' office pending a resolution, Squire said.
What happened: According to court records, the Hayeses signed a purchase agreement to buy the vehicle from Youngstown Buick, where they had bought several vehicles before. Rather than trade in his 1995 Suburban, Hayes opted to try selling it himself.
By mutual agreement with the dealership, Hayes left the 1995 model at Youngstown Buick, which agreed to try to sell it for him.
When the 1996 vehicle arrived, the dealership allowed Hayes to take it home until the old vehicle was sold and the deal could be finalized. When the vehicle did not sell, though, Hayes drove it home from the dealership, ending up with both Suburbans. That's when the dealership invoked the purchase agreement and demanded payment, court records say.
The couple resisted paying for the 1996 Suburban because they said the purchase agreement had never been finalized and they had never agreed to a specific price for the vehicle.
When the dealership tried to repossess the 1996 model for the couple's failure to pay, the Hayeses would not give it back, so the dealership took them to court.
Judge Robert G. Lisotto of common pleas court ordered the couple to pay $35,730, which was the price of the vehicle. The Hayeses appealed, and the 7th District Court of Appeals ruled in the dealership's favor earlier this year.
The couple then sought to have the case heard by the state Supreme Court.