Trial Court Erred In Applying The Doctrine Of Substantial Compliance To Consumer Protection Laws.

Civil Code section 2987, subdivision (d), subsection (2)(B), requires that lessors of vehicles which have been repossessed give the lessees a notice that contains this statement: “The amount you owe for early termination will be no more than the difference between the Gross Early Termination Amount stated above and (1) the appraised value of the vehicle or (2) if there is no appraisal, either the price received for the vehicle upon disposition or a greater amount established by the lessor or the lease contract. [¶] You have the right to get a professional appraisal to establish the value of the vehicle for the purpose of figuring how much you own on the lease.” If the notice is not given, a lessee is not liable for any deficiency. The notice sent to the plaintiff did not contain all of the required statutory language. Plaintiff filed a complaint against defendant alleging she represented a class of lessees to whom defendant sent the defective notice, and that defendant’s attempts to collect deficiencies violated Civil Code section 1788 et seq. [the Rosenthal Act] and Business and Professions Code section 17200 [Unfair Competition Law]. The court sustained defendant’s demurrer without leave to amend. On appeal, plaintiff argued the trial court erred by applying the doctrine of substantial compliance to consumer protection laws. In reversing, the appellate court stated: “Although the doctrine of substantial compliance has been employed when doing so avoids injustice and is consistent with the purposes of a particular statute, those considerations are not present here, where [defendant] failed to provide consumers with notice of their right to an appraisal upon early termination of their automobile leases in the language prescribed by Civil Code section 2987.” (Flannery v. VW Credit, Inc. ((Cal. App. Fourth Dist., Div. 1; December 17, 2014) 232 Cal.App.4th 606 [181 Cal.Rptr.3d 589].)