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Sperro LLC v. Ford Motor Credit Co. (Ind. Ct. App. 2016)

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Sperro LLC v. Ford Motor Credit Co. (2016)

Citation: 64 N.E.3d 235 · Court: Court of Appeals of Indiana (Crone, J., for the court; Kirsch and May, JJ., concurring) · Decided: November 17, 2016 · Interlocutory appeal from a preliminary injunction, Marion County.

Source note (2026-10-18):

Facts

Sperro LLC, a towing and storage business, ran what the trial court called “the Sperro Plan”: it paid consumer-bankruptcy clients’ legal fees in exchange for the clients signing a “Transporting and Storage Authorization Agreement” and having their financed vehicles towed to Indianapolis, where storage fees of USD 45 per day began to accrue. Sperro then asserted possessory mechanic’s liens under Ind. Code § 9-22-6-2 and sold the vehicles at “purported lien auctions” with no auctioneer present. It advertised the auctions in the Hendricks County Flyer, although its storage yards were in Marion County. The Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles issued 49 new titles on Sperro lien sales; 43 went to AMI Asset Management (whose sole shareholder had mentored Sperro’s principal) and most of the rest to Sperro, its principal, or a neighbour. Ford Motor Credit Company (FMCC), whose liens were noted on the vehicles’ certificates of title, sued for conversion, replevin and tortious interference, and obtained a preliminary injunction giving it prejudgment possession, barring the BMV from processing Sperro-side title applications, and enjoining the defendants from taking any FMCC-financed vehicle.

Holding

Affirmed. The trial court’s conclusions that the lien sales did not comply with § 9-22-6-2 were not clearly erroneous, so FMCC — whose perfected first liens the appellants conceded — had a reasonable probability of being entitled to possession:

  • Timing. § 9-22-6-2(c) requires the lienholder to wait 30 days after taking possession before advertising, and then at least 15 days after the advertisement before selling. The trial court read this as a minimum 45-day period, and the court of appeals rejected the reading that the 30 days was a deadline by which to advertise. Sales advertised inside the 30 days, and sales held 8 and 14 days after the advertisement, “were invalid.”
  • Newspaper. The advertisement must run in a paper of general circulation where the lienholder’s “place of business” is. A post-office box is “merely a mailing address and not a place of business,” so advertising in a paper not circulated in Marion County was a further ground of invalidity (citing Mobile Home Mgmt. Indiana, LLC v. Avon Vill. MHP, LLC, 17 N.E.3d 275 (Ind. Ct. App. 2014), where a mobile-home auction was invalid for defective notice).
  • Tortious interference. Given the principal’s 20 years in repossession, the trial court could find he knew the vehicles were financed and intentionally induced the borrowers’ breach.

Reasoning

  • The court applied ordinary statutory construction to subsection (c) as a whole. The appellants’ reading would have let a mechanic advertise one day after taking possession, before any default or chance to reclaim — an “absurd result.” A footnote notes that the later-amended text of § 9-22-6-2(c) supports this reading.
  • A footnote declines to apply the “strict construction” rule for non-possessory mechanic’s liens (Deluxe Sheet Metal; Jones v. Harner, 684 N.E.2d 560 (Ind. Ct. App. 1997)) to the possessory lien, which existed at common law.
  • Good faith is not a defence to civil conversion (footnote, citing Schrenker v. State).

Practical impact

  • Buyers at Indiana tow and storage lien sales: a BMV title issued on a non-compliant lien sale did not protect the buyer side here. The court enjoined further title processing and gave the financed vehicles to the lender with the noted lien. Before bidding, check the possession date, the advertisement date and paper, and the certified-mail notice to every lienholder of record (indiana module 12.3).
  • Lenders: a lien noted on the title, combined with a stop-title request to the BMV and a replevin action under Ind. Code ch. 32-35-2, recovered the vehicles.
  • Towers and storage operators: the 30-day + 15-day sequence is a floor, and the advertisement must run where the yard actually operates.

Good-law status

The earlier reviewer recorded CourtListener retrieval on 2026-10-16 and four citing opinions; that provenance is preserved. The independent 2026-10-17 request returned HTTP 202 with an empty body. The complete opinion was instead retrieved in overlapping full-text windows from the Justia primary-opinion mirror, including all 27 opinion pages. It affirms preliminary relief and the reasonable-probability possession determination, rather than entering a final quiet-title judgment or deciding every priority question for a compliant sale. The official 2026 Indiana Code text retains the 30-day/15-day structure and expressly allows compliant proof of mailing without actual receipt. Comprehensive later appellate treatment and comparison with all 2026 enactments remain needs_verification; a search-result count is not a citator clearance.

Full-text recheck (2026-10-18). The complete majority opinion was re-read in the verbatim Indiana Judicial Branch official opinion PDF (unofficial archive, labelled) after law.justia.com returned HTTP 403 to this review. The summary above matches it: affirmance of prejudgment possession and preliminary injunction; Group 1 sales invalid for advertising inside 30 days and for pre-correction notices, Group 2 sales invalid for selling under 15 days after the advertisement, and all sales invalid for advertising outside the place-of-business county. Kirsch and May, JJ., concurred.

Applies in →

indiana · towing-storage-and-mechanics-lien-sales · motor-vehicles

Legal information, not legal advice. Verify the complete opinion, current statute and operative order.

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