In Vega v. CarMax Auto Superstores, LLC, 2018 WL 3216347, at *5 (Cal.App. 2 Dist., 2018), the Court of Appeal held in an unpublished decision that a son, whose mother purchased a vehicle for him, could not recover for economic loss and personal injuries sustained when the vehicle he drove malfunctioned and had an accident, causing him personal injury and property damage.
Plaintiff claims – mistakenly – that, “[u]nlike the plaintiff in Schauer, here [plaintiff] was present with his mother at the CarMax lot when misrepresentations were made about the safety and reliability of the vehicle to be purchased.” Plaintiff continues, stating he “was responsible for the decision to purchase this used vehicle.” But the very same thing happened in Schauer. The plaintiff and her ex-husband “went shopping for an engagement ring”; “were together when plaintiff chose the ring she wanted or, as alleged in the complaint, she ‘caused [the ring] to be purchased for her’ ”; and her ex-husband “bought the ring ‘for the sole and stated purpose of giving [the ring]’ to plaintiff.” (Schauer, supra, 125 Cal.App.4th at p. 958.) In short, we see no pertinent distinction between Schauer and this case, and plaintiff offers none. . . Plaintiff’s complaint is fatally defective for the reasons we have discussed in connection with his fraudulent concealment claim: he was not a party to the purchase transaction and so was not the object of, and did not and could not have relied on, defendant Trelles’s alleged misrepresentations. Plaintiff presents no contentions and cites no authorities other than those in support of his fraudulent concealment claim, and we have found those to be without merit.
The Court of Appeal affirmed the dismissal of the UCL and CLRA claims for the same reason(s).