Editorial: Making sense of state lemon law

Tuesday, Feb. 10, 1998 | 10:45 a.m.

ANYONE looking to buy a used car can do so now with a little more confidence.

The Department of Motor Vehicles and Public Safety is reversing an earlier position in which it contended that a loophole existed in a new lemon law that would allow some used car dealers to escape having to tell prospective buyers about a vehicle's defects. When the DMV announced last week that dealers might be able to circumvent the new law, the author of the legislation, Assemblywoman Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, was understandably upset. Buckley asked the Legislature's attorneys to provide her with a legal interpretation.

The dispute centered on how many miles a car had to be driven before the consumer protections kicked in. The lemon law requires that any vehicles with more than 75,000 miles be inspected and that dealers report any trouble spots to potential buyers. Mileage on vehicles is determined by what appears on an odometer, but some older vehicles only have five places for numerals on an odometer. So, after a car reaches 100,000 miles, the odometer resets itself at 1 mile.

Some used car dealers and the DMV took a narrow view and contended this created a loophole, meaning that vehicles with more than 100,000 miles, but less than 175,000 miles, would be exempted from inspection.

The Legislative Counsel Bureau, which is the research and legal arm of the Legislature, came to a much different conclusion. Kimberly Morgan, chief deputy legal counsel, found another section of Nevada law that addresses this kind of discrepancy, noting that the law can't create a legal fiction. The other statute states that if "an odometer is not capable of registering 100,000 miles or more, the odometer shall be deemed to register the actual mileage the vehicle has traveled while in operation."

Instead of fighting the Legislature's common sense interpretation, the DMV agreed to abide by the Legislative Counsel Bureau's view. "We were waiting for an attorney general's opinion. But if that's what Buckley's opinion says, we have no objection to that," Bruce Glover, deputy director of the DMV, told SUN reporter Cy Ryan. It's refreshing to see a state agency that won't reflexively dig in its heels, and is willing to reconsider a decision when more information comes to light.