Background
In June 2023, Meredith Blair Bearov brought her car to Joe Miller’s Village Body & Paint Shop in Fauquier County for a repair estimate after an accident; the car was insured by Progressive. Miller estimated repairs at about $16,300. Progressive’s representative inspected the car without opening the hood in July 2023 and countered with a $5,000 estimate. Miller urged a reinspection. After a second inspection in late August, Progressive declared the car a total loss, paid Bearov its value, and took title from her. Progressive then called Miller on September 19 to ask about storage fees. Miller quoted $120 per day. Rather than pay, Progressive offered Miller title to the car as settlement. Miller refused. Progressive promised three times to retrieve the car but never did. The car sat in Miller’s lot for nearly a year.
Miller filed suit in April 2024 to recover the accruing storage fees. Progressive moved for partial summary judgment, arguing that Miller’s claim was one of unjust enrichment (not quantum meruit), and that under the Virginia Supreme Court’s decision in T. Musgrove Construction Co. v. Young, 298 Va. 480 (2020), his unjust-enrichment recovery was capped at the vehicle’s salvage value ($1,600). The circuit court agreed, entered judgment for Miller in that limited amount, and preserved his objection. The Court of Appeals vacated and remanded.
The Court’s Holding
Judge Lorish, writing for the panel, vacated on all three grounds Miller raised. First, the court held that Miller’s complaint—read in the light most favorable to him as the non-moving party—alleged facts supporting quantum meruit, not just unjust enrichment. Under Virginia law, quantum meruit is available when services are performed at the “instance and request” of another but there is no agreed price or a misunderstanding about price; the law then implies a contract to pay the reasonable value of the services. Unjust enrichment, by contrast, requires no contract and limits recovery to the benefit realized and retained by the defendant. The distinction between the two doctrines turns on whether the defendant requested the services. Here, after Progressive took title to the car, it called Miller to ask about storage costs, acknowledged that storage is customary at auto shops (admitting as much in response to Miller’s requests for admission), promised three times to retrieve the vehicle, and offered it title to the car as payment—conduct that, viewed in Miller’s favor, raises a genuine dispute of fact about whether Progressive requested, and thereby implicitly contracted for, continued storage services after taking ownership.
Second, even if unjust enrichment applied, T. Musgrove’s salvage-value cap did not control. T. Musgrove involved a towing company that intervened without the owner’s knowledge to protect a truck from harm; the Supreme Court applied Restatement (Third) of Restitution § 21 and limited recovery to the “loss avoided” (the truck’s value). That Restatement section applies to unrequested intervention to protect property from threatened harm—not to a situation where the insurer actively left the vehicle with the shop, called to discuss fees, and repeatedly promised retrieval. The benefit Progressive received from Miller’s storage services over nearly a year is not obviously equivalent to the car’s salvage value. Third, Code § 46.2-644.01—Virginia’s vehicle-keeper lien statute—creates a lien enforceable by public auction, not a ceiling on civil damages in a separate lawsuit. Assuming Miller qualifies as a “keeper of vehicles,” the statute limits only the recovery obtainable through the statutory lien-and-sale mechanism; it does not cap a civil action for storage fees. This opinion is not designated for publication. See Code § 17.1-413(A).
Key Takeaways
- When an insurer takes title to a vehicle declared a total loss, calls the shop to inquire about storage fees, repeatedly promises to retrieve the vehicle, and effectively acknowledges that storage is a customary service, those facts may support an implied contract and a quantum meruit claim—not merely unjust enrichment—entitling the shop to the reasonable value of the services rendered.
- T. Musgrove’s salvage-value cap on unjust enrichment damages applies to unrequested intervention to protect property from threatened harm under Restatement (Third) of Restitution § 21; it does not categorically cap storage-fee recovery where the defendant was on notice and repeatedly chose to leave the vehicle in the shop’s lot.
- Code § 46.2-644.01, Virginia’s vehicle-keeper lien statute, limits recovery only when the keeper invokes the statutory right to sell the vehicle at public auction; it does not cap civil damages in a direct court action.
- Summary judgment is improper when reasonable inferences from the pleadings and admissions in the record could support an implied-contract theory, leaving material facts about the nature of the parties’ post-title dealings genuinely in dispute.
Why It Matters
For auto body shops, towing operators, and the insurers who interact with them throughout Virginia, Miller v. Progressive draws a practical line between unjust enrichment and quantum meruit with real consequences for the damages ceiling. A shop that passively stores a vehicle while an insurer considers its options may be limited to salvage value under a T. Musgrove unjust-enrichment theory. But a shop that can show the insurer actively reached out about fees, acknowledged that storage is customary, and promised repeatedly to retrieve the vehicle has the building blocks for a quantum meruit claim measured by the reasonable value of the services—which, at $120 (or even $75) per day over nearly a year, can substantially exceed salvage value.
Counsel representing body shops, salvage yards, or towing operators in storage-fee disputes should plead and develop the post-title contact carefully. Progressive’s own admissions—that it called to ask about fees and that storage is customary at most shops—helped Miller survive summary judgment. The opinion also closes a gap on Code § 46.2-644.01: the vehicle-keeper lien statute is an additional remedy available to the shop, not a ceiling on its civil action.