Appellate court upholds $10K judgment for Wells Fargo for unpaid balance

The Indiana Court of Appeals has affirmed the grant of summary judgment to Wells Fargo Bank on breach of contract claims after one of its clients failed to pay more than $9,000 on a charge-card account.

In November 2017, Shenmei Yuan entered into a cardholder agreement with Wells Fargo in which she was required to make monthly payments toward her balance. But by June 2018, Yuan had made her last payment on the card, leaving an outstanding balance of $9,191 unpaid.

Wells Fargo filed a complaint against her, raising breach of contract claims and seeking damages for the unpaid amount and reasonable attorney fees. Yuan submitted her answer to the complaint in which she admitted she had established the account, and Wells Fargo filed a motion for summary judgment. In its motion, Wells Fargo included a designation of evidence that included the affidavit of Lindsay R. Hogueison, a loan adjuster for Wells Fargo.

Yuan filed a memorandum in opposition to summary judgment, a motion to strike and a memorandum in opposition to attorney fees, arguing among other things that Wells Fargo had designated inadmissible evidence in support of its summary judgment motion, which she claimed should be stricken and without which Wells Fargo had failed to demonstrate a lack of genuine issue of material fact.

The Boone Superior Court ultimately granted summary judgment to Wells Fargo in the amount of $10,132.01 without entering specific findings of fact and conclusions of law, which the Indiana Court of Appeals affirmed.

“The Hogueison Affidavit and Exhibits 1-4 showed that Yuan had entered into the Agreement; she had breached the Agreement through non-payment; and that she had caused Wells Fargo damages in the amount of $9,191. Therefore, we conclude that Wells Fargo made a prima facie case for summary judgment,” Judge Patricia Riley wrote for the appellate court.

Addressing each of Yuan’s four challenges to Wells Fargo’s prima facie case for summary judgment, the appellate court first found that Hogueison’s references to Wells Fargo’s “books, records, and documents” were to demonstrate her personal knowledge of the matters related and to establish the business record foundation for exhibits 1-4. It then found that unlike Speybroeck v. State, 875 N.E.2d 813 (Ind. Ct. App. 2007), Yaun never challenged the authentication of exhibits 1-4.

“Further distinguishing the case, Yuan did not challenge either of the 803(6) foundational elements at issue in Speybroeck. Therefore, we do not find her argument based on Speybroeck to be relevant or persuasive,” Riley wrote.

Additionally, the appellate panel found that the Hogueison affidavit met the requirements of Rule 803(6) and that Exhibit 1 was self-authenticating. Finally, it concluded that Yuan failed to prove trial court’s grant of summary judgment was erroneous.

“Based on the foregoing, we conclude that Wells Fargo made a prima facie case for summary judgment based on admissible evidence which merited summary judgment in its favor,” Riley wrote in Shenmei Yuan v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., 20A-CC-1470.