Riley, J.
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant-Plaintiff, Adam Boots (Boots), appeals the trial court’s summary judgment in favor of Appellees-Defendants, D. Young Chevrolet, LLC d/b/a Penske Chevrolet (Penske Chevrolet), and Capital One Auto Finance, Inc. (Capital One), on Boots’ fraud claim and claim under the Indiana Buyback Vehicle Disclosure Law. [Footnote omitted.]
We reverse and remand for further proceedings.
….
To decide this issue, it is necessary to interpret the Buyback Vehicle Disclosure Law, encapsulated in Indiana Code chapter 24-5-13.5….
The Buyback Vehicle Disclosure Law is part of Indiana’s overarching Motor Vehicle Protection Act, which has as its underlying purpose to give buyers safe and dependable automobiles and to induce manufacturers to improve the quality of their products and service. See Harold Greenberg, The Indiana Motor Vehicle Protection Act of 1988: The Real Thing for Sweetening the Lemon or Merely a Weak Artificial Sweetener, 22 Ind. L. Rev. 57 (1989). Pursuant to the express terms of the statute, the Indiana Buyback Vehicle Disclosure Law applies to “[a]ll motor vehicles that are sold, leased, transferred, or replaced by a dealer or manufacturer in Indiana.” Ind. Code § 24-5-13.5-1. More specifically, a buyback vehicle, also known as a ‘lemon,’ is defined, in pertinent part, as “a motor vehicle that has been replaced or repurchased by a manufacturer or a nonresident manufacturer’s agent or an authorized dealer,” and that suffers from nonconformities or defects pursuant to I.C. § 24-5-13-8. I.C. § 24-5-13.5-3. A buyback vehicle may not be resold in Indiana unless the following conditions have been met:
(1) The manufacturer provides the same express warranty the manufacturer provided to the original purchaser, except that the term of the warranty need only last for twelve thousand (12,000) miles or twelve months after the date of resale.
(2) The following disclosure language must be conspicuously contained in a contract for the sale or lease of a buyback vehicle to a consumer or contained in a form affixed to the contract:
“IMPORTANT
This vehicle was previously sold as new. It was subsequently returned to the manufacturer or authorized dealer in exchange for a replacement vehicle or a refund because it did not conform to the manufacturer’s express warranty and the nonconformity was not cured within a reasonable time as provided by Indiana law.”
(3) The manufacturer provides the dealer a separate document with a written statement identifying the vehicle conditions that formed the basis for the previous owner’s or lessee’s dissatisfaction and the steps taken to deal with that dissatisfaction in 10-point all capital type.
I.C. § 24-5-13.5-10. Prior to “reselling a buyback vehicle in Indiana, a dealer must provide the buyer the express warranty required by section 10(1) of this chapter and the written statement of disclosure required by section 10(3) of this chapter and obtain the buyer’s acknowledgment of this disclosure at the time of sale or lease as evidenced by the buyer’s signature on the statement of disclosure.” I.C. § 24-5-13.5-11. [Footnote omitted.] Consistent with Indiana law, the face of a certificate of title of a buyback vehicle must be branded with the statement “Manufacturer Buyback – Disclosure on File.” I.C. § 9-17-3-3.5.
Referencing a statement on the Attorney General’s website, Penske Chevrolet, supported by Amicus, now attempts to create an ambiguity by interjecting a requirement in the statutory language that the written disclosure and extended warranty only apply the first time a dealer sells a buyback vehicle after it was refurbished by the manufacturer. [Footnote omitted.] However, we cannot read into the statute something that is simply not there. Nowhere in the statutory language did the Legislature include a limiting provision for the statute’s applicability; rather, the statute plainly governs all buyback vehicles that “are sold, leased, transferred, or replaced by a dealer or manufacturer in Indiana” regardless whether this involves a first resale or the tenth. I.C. § 24-5-13.5-1; See State v. Oddi-Smith, 878 N.E.2d 1245, 1248 (Ind. 2008) (“The best evidence of legislative intent is the language of the statute itself[.]”). As such, the Legislature unambiguously ordered that after a buyback vehicle has been corrected by the manufacturer, it “may not be resold” unless the dealer provides the extended warranty and discloses the vehicle’s condition to the buyer with the written statement. Accordingly, as Penske Chevrolet admitted to not having provided Boots with the disclosure statement and extended warranty, Penske Chevrolet violated the statute.
….
CONCLUSION
Based on the foregoing, we hold that the trial court erred by granting summary judgement to Penske Chevrolet on Boots’ statutory and fraud claims. We reverse the trial court’s entry of summary judgment and enter summary judgment in favor of Boots as a matter of law.
Reversed and remanded for further proceedings.
Baker, J. and Brown, J. concur