America Atlantic Transmission v. Nice Car, Inc. (2013)
Citation: 112 So. 3d 639 · Court: District Court of Appeal of Florida, Fourth District · Decided: April 24, 2013 · Opinion: Damoorgian, J. (Gross, J., and Stone, Senior Judge, concurring).
Source note (2026-10-18):
- Links on this page to
https://static.case.law/so3d/112/cases/0639-01.jsonare an (unofficial Caselaw Access Project copy, retrieved before 2026-10-18; host disallows automated access); no official or otherwise permitted full-text copy was located on 2026-10-18.
Case page. Legal information, not legal advice. Last verified: 2026-10-17.
Independent source check (2026-10-17): the six-page court opinion was retrieved through an unofficial Justia-hosted PDF copy. The current §§ 559.917 and 713.585 were separately retrieved from Online Sunshine. The historical CAP URL below was not used for this independent check; no citator was run.
Facts
A repair shop (AAT) repaired a vehicle on which Nice Car held a lien. When the owner did not pay, the shop served a Notice of Claim of Lien and Proposed Sale under § 713.585, Fla. Stat. (2012), on the owner and on Nice Car. Nice Car posted a cash bond under § 559.917 and obtained a clerk’s certificate directing release. The shop refused — Nice Car “was not the customer” — and went forward with the sale. The trial court held the shop in contempt and ordered release. (Opinion text retrieved from https://static.case.law/so3d/112/cases/0639-01.json on 2026-10-17.)
Holding
Reversed. Under the 2012 statutes, a lienholder “was not entitled to invoke the right of possession upon posting a bond under section 559.917.” Section 713.585(1)(h) gave the bond-release right to “the owner of the vehicle,” and § 559.917(1)(a) gave it to “[a]ny customer”; a lienholder was neither. The case was remanded to decide whether Nice Car’s motion was a demand for hearing under § 713.585(5), where the court can determine the lien’s validity, its priority “as against any existing security interest,” and distribution of proceeds.
Reasoning
Plain-meaning construction: the Legislature named the owner (and the “customer”) as the persons who may bond out the vehicle, while it named “any person claiming an interest in or lien” only for the hearing right in § 713.585(5). The court noted the lienholder still received notice and a hearing right, and that the trial court at that hearing could let the lienholder post a bond.
Practical impact
- Current law differs. The 2026 text of § 559.917(1)(a) reads “A customer or a person of record claiming a lien against a motor vehicle may obtain the release” by bond, and § 713.585(5) now lets “the owner of the vehicle, or any person claiming an interest in the vehicle or a lien thereon” post a bond under § 559.917 or demand a hearing (both retrieved 2026-10-16 from leg.state.fl.us; § 559.917 history lists s. 1, ch. 2019-73). A secured lender can therefore now bond a vehicle out of a repair-lien sale.
- Still useful for: the structure of the § 713.585(5) hearing (validity, priority against the security interest, proceeds), which remains in § 713.585(7).
- Buyers: check a pending bond certificate or hearing demand against the current release and hearing rules (§§ 559.917(1)–(3), 713.585(5)). The contempt order in this particular case was reversed; the opinion is not authority that every clerk-issued certificate was valid under the former law.
Good-law status
Superseded in part by statute as described above; the hearing-procedure analysis remains consistent with current § 713.585(5), (7). No citator was run.
Applies in →
florida, towing-storage-and-mechanics-lien-sales, motor-vehicles
Legal information, not legal advice. Verify against the current primary source before relying on this summary.
Independent Primary-Text Comparison — 2026-10-17
2021 FGAP footnote and current 559.917/713.585 distinguish the January 2020 amendment and separate defensive statutory rights. Current operative comparison: § 559.917; § 713.585. Full holding verification is not a comprehensive still-good-law certificate. Where the former source URL failed, the working full-opinion source now appears in metadata; original failed receipts remain separate in the review evidence.
Legal information, not legal advice. Verify against the cited primary sources and consult a licensed Florida attorney before acting.