## Facts

- Mose Minor financed a 2003 Toyota Tundra through a simple-interest motor-vehicle contract and security agreement with Chase Auto Finance Corporation.
- The contract required sixty-six monthly payments of $456.99 due on the 14th of each month and treated failure to pay when due as a default.
- The contract authorized Chase, upon default, to declare sums due and repossess the vehicle “without notice or demand,” and included clauses stating that (1) acceptance of late/partial payments or extensions would not waive later enforcement “as written,” and (2) any contract modification must be in a signed writing.
- Minor was late on the first payment and made late payments repeatedly; Chase accepted them.
- The parties executed a two-month extension agreement providing that all other contract provisions remained in force.
- Minor filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy; Chase treated the prepetition debt as discharged but maintained Minor had to keep making payments to retain the vehicle.
- After becoming three months delinquent post-bankruptcy, Minor’s truck was repossessed without prior notice that Chase would require timely payments going forward.
- Minor sued, claiming Chase’s pattern of accepting late payments waived strict compliance and required reasonable notice before repossession; the circuit court directed a verdict for Chase.

## Issues

1. Whether nonwaiver and no-unwritten-modification clauses in a vehicle financing agreement prevent a creditor from waiving strict future compliance by repeatedly accepting late payments.
2. Whether, despite a history of accepting late payments, a creditor must give notice that it will insist on timely payments before repossessing collateral upon a later default.

## Decision

- The Arkansas Supreme Court held the nonwaiver and no-unwritten-modification clauses were enforceable and barred Minor’s waiver and course-of-performance theories.
- The court ruled Chase’s acceptance of late payments did not waive its right to enforce the payment terms as written or to repossess upon default without further notice.
- The court answered the certified question in Chase’s favor and affirmed the directed verdict for Chase.

## Legal Principles

- Where a contract clearly states that acceptance of late or partial payments does not waive later enforcement of contract terms, a course of performance accepting late payments does not create an implied waiver contrary to that language.
- A no-oral-modification clause requiring a signed writing limits claims that the contract was altered through conduct alone.
- When the agreement authorizes repossession upon default “without notice or demand,” and nonwaiver language preserves remedies, the creditor need not provide additional notice before resuming strict enforcement after prior leniency.
- Post-bankruptcy discharge of prepetition debt does not, by itself, negate enforcement of postpetition payment obligations and default remedies under the contract as applied to later delinquencies.

## Conclusion

The court enforced express nonwaiver and written-modification requirements in a vehicle financing contract, holding that a creditor’s repeated acceptance of late payments did not waive strict compliance or create a duty to warn before repossessing collateral upon a subsequent default.


Minor v. Chase Auto Fin. Corp., 2010 Ark. 246, 372 S.W.3d 762 (2010)