Rejected-dealer Advocate Fitzgerald Loses Arbitration on 4 Chrysler Stores

WASHINGTON - Rejected-dealer leader Jack Fitzgerald lost a bid for reinstatement of his four Chrysler stores in Maryland when an arbitrator held that they didn't fit the company's plan of consolidating its four brands into each dealership.

The decisions were a victory for Chrysler's Project Genesis strategy, which has largely but not completely carried the day in other arbitrations.

Fitzgerald's dealerships in suburban Washington each carried one or two Chrysler brands but not all four.

“I found little evidence that the dealer had a well-thought-out and sound business plan for fitting within the Chrysler business plan, which I considered as itself well-thought-out and sound, having been developed by experts in the field,” arbitrator James Constable wrote yesterday in four identical decisions.

He echoed Chrysler's rationale for Genesis: that it may increase per-dealer sales and create jobs.

In a twist, the arbitrator's reasoning clashed with the decision of a Florida arbitrator last month to grant Fitzgerald's bid to reinstate his Clearwater, Fla., store.

The Florida arbitrator challenged Chrysler's Genesis plan and said it wasn't in the public interest for the company to close Fitzgerald's store.

Chrysler hopes to have 100 percent of its dealerships house all four brands by the end of next year.

Fitzgerald is unconvinced that Genesis is working, and he cited both national and local sales figures to buttress his argument.

“Genesis is a failure,” he said in an interview today. “It has promoted fewer sales and fewer jobs.”

Fitzgerald said a competing Genesis dealership in suburban Maryland was selling substantially fewer vehicles than his terminated stores had sold.

Fitzgerald, 74, is one of three leaders of the Committee to Restore Dealer Rights, a rejected-dealer group that successfully led the fight in Congress for legislation to set up arbitrations for rejected Chrysler and General Motors stores.

Chrysler Group said in a statement that it is “pleased” with the arbitration judgments.

“The decisions to select dealers for the company's right-sized dealer network were carefully considered as part of Chrysler's Genesis Project,” the statement said. “Placing all four brands under one roof in modern, well-located facilities has already resulted in enhanced profitability for the Genesis dealerships.”

Fitzgerald's Maryland dealerships were in Silver Spring, Gaithersburg, Kensington and Frederick.

The arbitrator said all four failed to meet Chrysler's sales criteria.

Fitzgerald said that the arbitrator was “confused” and that only one of the four didn't perform adequately. The Gaithersburg store, in fact, was the top-performing Chrysler dealership in Montgomery County, he said.

Separately, Fitzgerald has reached settlements with General Motors Co. to maintain two of his dealerships that had been on the company's wind-down list.