Car rental company Enterprise Fleet Management, the world’s largest vehicle fleet operator, dropped its lawsuit this summer against the town of Mooresville, a police detective and auto dealer Randy Marion over $2 million in rental vans the dealership and police claim were stolen.
Enterprise didn’t say in its dismissal form in U.S. District Court in Statesville why it dropped its claims. Raleigh lawyers Chris Jones and Sam Hartzell, who represented Enterprise, didn’t respond to requests for comment by The Charlotte Observer.
In its lawsuit, St. Louis-based Enterprise said it still owned the 34 cargo vans and that police should never have entered them as stolen in a national crime database.
The 2023 RAM ProMaster 3500 vans cost $60,000 apiece, according to the Enterprise lawsuit. The complaint said Enterprise leased the vans to a national HVAC and refrigeration services company not named in the lawsuit.
Mooresville police listed the vans as stolen after Mooresville-based Randy Marion Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram wrongly claimed ownership of the vans, Enterprise said in the lawsuit. The HVAC company couldn’t put the vans on the road without their drivers risking arrest, Enterprise said.
The case stemmed from a contract dispute that didn’t involve Enterprise, its complaint says.
Randy Marion originally sold the vans to Zeeba, a California-based national fleet management and vehicle leasing company, according to the lawsuit.
Zeeba then sold the vans to an Ohio-based Mercedes-Benz dealership that in turn sold them to Enterprise, the lawsuit says.
According to the complaint, the Randy Marion dealership contends Zeeba failed to pay it for the vans per terms of their sales agreement.
“This dispute between Randy Marion and Zeeba Company does not affect Enterprise’s ownership” of the vans, according to its lawsuit. “Enterprise is an innocent third-party to that dispute.”
“And North Carolina law is clear,” the lawsuit says: Despite the Randy Marion-Zeeba sales dispute, Zeeba still had the power to transfer the titles of the vans to Mercedes-Benz of West Chester, Ohio.
Before they filed the complaint, Enterprise officials say in the lawsuit, they repeatedly told Mooresville police the vans weren’t stolen.
In its lawsuit, Enterprise included copies of the certificates of origin showing Randy Marion’s transfer of ownership of the vans to Zeeba, and the Illinois certificates of title and registration identification cards identifying Enterprise as their legal owner.
“Yet the Police Department refuses to remove the Cargo Vans from the stolen-vehicle registry,” according to the lawsuit.
Charlotte lawyers Robert McNeill, who represented the Randy Marion dealership, and Jake Stewart, who represented the town and its police detective, didn’t respond to messages from the Observer on Tuesday.
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