Former Sears Mechanic Files Suit : Courts: The man contends he was forced to quit because he refused to sell customers unneeded parts and services.

By SHARON BERNSTEIN

June 30, 1993 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

Roger Sult didn’t want to be one of those mechanics that car owners tell horror stories about.

As a result, he says, he lost his job.

Sult, 39, of Reseda, worked for 16 years in the automotive departments of Sears, Roebuck & Co. stores in the San Fernando Valley, starting as a mechanic in Northridge and working his way up to service adviser at the Sears garage in Canoga Park.

In a lawsuit filed Monday against the company, Sult alleges that he was forced to resign because he refused to go along with a policy under which customers were sold parts and services that they didn’t need, or charged for services that were not performed.

Sult is one of nine former employees now suing the retail giant, according to Sears. The suits are part of the fallout from Sears’ admission--under pressure from attorneys general in California and other states--last summer that mistakes were made in servicing customers’ cars.

In September, Sears agreed to distribute at least $46.6 million in refunds and service coupons to disgruntled customers. In California, the company’s license to perform auto repairs was placed on probation for three years. “It got to the point where there was such extreme pressure to make these quotas and goals that I no longer felt comfortable with my job,” Sult said. “I started telling them it was an unjust way of doing business.”

As a result, he said, he was forced to resign.

Sears spokesman Greg Rossiter said he could not comment specifically on Sult’s suit, although he confirmed that Sult had worked in the company’s Northridge and Canoga Park stores.

Rossiter stressed that despite the settlements, Sears had not admitted that it was guilty of deliberate wrongdoing. It was not fair, he said, to judge Sears as guilty of Sult’s charges simply because of last year’s scandal.

“In each case where the allegations were made, we acknowledged that mistakes were made by associates in isolated incidents,” he said. “However, there was no admission of fraud or systematic abuse by the company.”

In his suit, filed in Superior Court in Los Angeles, Sult contended that his supervisors “required him to sell a daily quota of regular shock absorbers, MacPherson struts, transmission services . . . alignments, complete brake jobs, oil changes and a full set of tires to customers regardless of whether customers’ vehicles required the products and services.”

In addition, the suit alleges, his supervisors required Sult to charge customers for more services than they actually received.

Salespeople and mechanics were paid according to how much they sold, he said, and hourly wages were cut and replaced with commissions.

After a while, Sult said, he couldn’t do it any more.

“I felt terrible about it, and that’s what forced me into refusal to abide by the quota system,” he said.

Sult said he refused to overcharge customers or to sell them unnecessary repairs, and was repeatedly disciplined as a result. Last June, he said, he was offered a severance package and told that if he did not accept it and resign, he would be fired.

Rossiter said the company has changed its policies since the scandal broke last summer.

“Commissions have been eliminated entirely from the auto service center,” Rossiter said. “We have changed the business in terms of the way we run it, the focus, our policies and procedures.”