MISSISSIPPI LEGISLATURE

1998 Regular Session

To: Business and Financial Institutions

By: Senator(s) Gollott, Woodfield, Hewes

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF MISSISSIPPI:

SECTION 1. (1) Every personal watercraft manufacturer or distributor shall provide a fair and reasonable warranty agreement on any new personal watercraft which it sells and shall fairly compensate each of its personal watercraft dealers for labor and parts used in fulfilling such warranty agreements.

(2) (a) Each claim for payment under such warranty agreements made by a personal watercraft dealer for such labor and parts shall be paid within thirty (30) days following its approval. Each such claim shall be either approved or disapproved within thirty (30) days after its receipt. When any such claim is disapproved, the personal watercraft dealer who submitted it shall be notified in writing of such disapproval within such period, and such notice shall state the specific grounds upon which the disapproval is based.

(b) Any special handling of claims required of the dealer by the manufacturer or distributor which handling is not uniformly required of all dealers of that make, may be enforced only after thirty (30) days' notice in writing to the dealer and upon good and sufficient reason.

(3) (a) The minimum lawful basis for compensating a dealer for warranty work as provided for in this section, shall be calculated for labor in accordance with the reasonable and customary amount of time required to complete such work, expressed in hours and fractions of hours multiplied by the dealer's established hourly retail labor rate. Prior to filing a claim for reimbursement for warranty work, the dealer must notify the applicable manufacturer or distributor of his hourly retail labor rate.

(b) The minimum lawful basis for compensation to the dealer for parts used in fulfilling such warranty work shall be at the dealer's costs for such parts, including all freight and handling charges applicable to such parts, plus fifteen percent (15%) of the sum of such costs and charges to reimburse the dealer's reasonable cost of doing business and providing such warranty service on behalf of the manufacturer or distributor.

(4) As used in this section, "personal watercraft" means

a small class A-1 or A-2 vessel which uses an outboard motor, or an inboard motor powering a water jet pump, as its primary source of motive power and which is designed to be operated by a person sitting, standing, or kneeling on, or being towed behind the vessel, rather than in the conventional manner of sitting or standing inside the vessel.

SECTION 2. This act shall take effect and be in force from and after July 1, 1998.