Sarena Kustic (Of Counsel-San Diego, CA) successfully moved for summary judgment resulting in a dismissal before Los Angeles County Superior Court on behalf of a major credit union client. The underlying breach of contract and negligence case stemmed from the plaintiff’s purchase of a vehicle using a cashier's check drawn from her account with Wilson Elser’s client. The dealership assumed the check was from loan proceeds and listed the credit union as a lienholder on the vehicle title (in addition to delivering the wrong vehicle to the plaintiff). Once the title error was discovered, the credit union executed the appropriate documents to remove its name from the vehicle title and returned it to the dealership. The plaintiff sued the dealership for breach of contract and named the credit union as a defendant alleging it fraudulently added itself to the vehicle title and created a loan obligation in the plaintiff’s name. Sarena tendered the defense to the dealership on equitable grounds, but the dealership refused, prompting a cross-complaint against the dealership for equitable indemnity. Despite the dealership admitting that its mistake was the reason our client was named on the title and no loan obligation was ever created, the plaintiff refused to dismiss the credit union from the case. Sarena moved the court for summary judgment and succeeded in obtaining a dismissal in favor of our client. Thereafter, Sarena successfully negotiated settlement of the cross-complaint against the dealership resulting in a substantial amount of attorney fees recovered from the dealership.