$5M Class Action Lawsuit Filed Over 1/2 Tank of Gas

By Sarah Mirando | February 28, 2012

Category: Legal News

By Matt O’Donnell

A Michigan woman has filed a class action lawsuit against Ally Financial, Inc. seeking more than $5 million in damages for keeping a half tank of gas from her car when it was repossessed. Her lawsuit is based on the argument that, as with all personal property within a repossessed vehicle, it must be returned to the owner.

“It’s the same as if you left your jacket in there and they didn’t return it to you. You can’t take someone’s coat or fuzzy dice, and you have to return the gas,” said the woman’s attorney. “Gasoline is considered personal property. If it’s in the ground and not extracted, it’s mineral. If it’s extracted, it’s personal property.”

Victoria Jean Church-Dellinger of White Lake, Michigan, filed the class action lawsuit last week in federal court against Ally Financial for keeping $29 worth of gas in her 2008 Pontiac G6 when it was repossessed.

Church-Dellinger is asking for $5 million in damages, or three times the fair-market value of all gas taken from Michigan residents by Ally Financial in the past six years.

Her class action lawsuit is also seeking to force the auto lender, which is majority-owned by the U.S. government, to return all gas seized during that time or pay fair-market value for it and to give owners whose vehicles are repossessed credit for gas left in the tank.