## Facts

- Harold L. Walters, a California resident, purchased a mobile home from Dixon Mobile Homes, Inc., a Nevada dealer, in March 1967.
- Walters traveled to Nevada and signed a purchase order there; the agreement contemplated California use by providing for California sales tax, licensing, and registration fees.
- The purchase order left financing terms blank and omitted statutorily required warnings and disclosures concerning the buyer’s rights and liabilities under California’s consumer installment sales law (Rees–Levering).
- Dixon delivered the mobile home to Walters in California; Walters mailed installment payments from California to Nevada.
- After payment problems, Dixon sent agents into California to repossess the mobile home.
- Walters alleged the repossession attempt involved entry onto his property and into the home, efforts to separate the unit, and substantial property damage.
- Dixon sued in California seeking recovery of the mobile home and a deficiency; Walters cross-complained for rescission and restitution under Rees–Levering and for tort damages (including punitive damages) based on the repossession conduct.
- The trial court applied California law, awarded Walters rescission-based restitution ($7,339.70), attorney’s fees ($750), and costs ($595.50), returned possession of the mobile home to Dixon, and a jury awarded additional compensatory ($2,320) and punitive ($2,500) damages on tort claims.
- On appeal, the record consisted of a clerk’s transcript only, limiting review largely to pleadings, findings, and the judgment.

## Issues

1. Whether California’s Rees–Levering consumer installment sales protections applied to a mobile-home sale executed in Nevada between a Nevada dealer and a California resident when delivery, use, and repossession-related conduct occurred in California.
2. Whether the seller’s failure to include required statutory disclosures permitted rescission and restitution and allowed additional tort damages, including punitive damages, arising from the repossession attempt.
3. How the absence of a reporter’s transcript constrained appellate review of factual findings supporting liability and damages.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeal affirmed the judgment.
- It upheld the trial court’s choice-of-law determination applying California law, including the Rees–Levering Act, given the transaction’s substantial California contacts and California’s consumer-protection policy.
- It upheld rescission-type relief and restitution for statutory noncompliance, along with attorney’s fees and costs.
- It left intact the jury’s compensatory and punitive damage awards for tortious repossession conduct, presuming evidentiary support because the appeal proceeded without a reporter’s transcript.

## Legal Principles

- California may apply its consumer installment sales protections to an out-of-state executed contract when the buyer is a California resident and the transaction contemplates performance and effects in California (including delivery, registration, and use in California).
- Rees–Levering-required contract warnings and disclosures are mandatory; omission can justify statutory remedies including rescission and restitution, and may support an attorney’s fee award where authorized.
- Statutory rescission/restitution remedies do not bar concurrent common-law tort remedies for wrongful repossession conduct, including punitive damages where the requisite state of mind is found.
- When an appeal proceeds on a clerk’s transcript without a reporter’s transcript, factual findings and evidentiary support for damages are generally presumed correct, and appellate review is correspondingly limited.

## Conclusion

The court affirmed a judgment applying California’s consumer installment sales law to a Nevada-executed mobile-home sale delivered and used in California, holding that statutory disclosure violations supported rescission and restitution with fees and costs, and that tort-based compensatory and punitive damages for wrongful repossession activity in California could stand, particularly given the limited appellate record.


Dixon Mobile Homes, Inc. v. Walters, 48 Cal. App. 3d 964, 122 Cal. Rptr. 202 (Ct. App. 1975)