HRE v. STATE (2026)

Statement of the Case

[1] Tawk Hre (“Hre”) appeals the trial court's restitution order. He argues that the trial court abused its discretion when it ordered him to pay Katie Mumford (“Mumford”) restitution for her rental car expenses. Concluding that the trial court abused its discretion, we reverse and remand with instructions for the trial court to enter a corrected restitution order.

[2] We reverse and remand with instructions.

Issue

Whether the trial court abused its discretion when it ordered Hre to pay Mumford restitution for her rental car expenses.

Facts

[3] In January 2025, forty-two-year-old Hre crashed his vehicle into and damaged Mumford's car (“the car”).¹ A blood test revealed that Hre's alcohol concentration equivalent was .277 gram of alcohol per 100 milliliters of blood. In November 2025, he pleaded guilty, pursuant to a plea agreement, to Class A misdemeanor operating a vehicle while intoxicated. Pursuant to the terms of the plea agreement, the trial court sentenced Hre to 360 days with 356 days suspended to probation and scheduled a restitution hearing for a later date.

[4] At the March 2026 restitution hearing, Mumford testified that she had been without a vehicle while she had been waiting for the insurance company to pay for damages to the car and that she had used Uber, Lyft, and a rental car for transportation to work and other places. The trial court admitted into evidence Mumford's receipts from Uber and Lyft, which revealed that she had spent $521.35 on those services from January 17, 2025 through January 30, 2025. The trial court also admitted into evidence Mumford's receipt from a rental car company, which revealed that Mumford had spent $1,122.12 for a rental car from January 30, 2025 through February 14, 2025. Mumford asked the trial court to order Hre to pay her restitution for the Uber, Lyft, and rental car expenses.

[5] Later in March 2026, the trial court entered an order requiring Hre to pay Mumford $1,122.12 in restitution for the rental car expenses but declined to require Hre to pay Mumford restitution for the Uber and Lyft expenses.

[6] Hre now appeals.

Decision

[7] Hre argues that the trial court abused its discretion when it ordered him to pay Mumford restitution for her rental car expenses. We agree.

[8] “Generally, an order of restitution is within the trial court's discretion, and it will be reversed only upon a finding of an abuse of that discretion.” Akehurst v. State, 115 N.E.3d 515, 518 (Ind. Ct. App. 2018) (cleaned up). An abuse of discretion occurs when the trial court misinterprets or misapplies the law. Id.

[9] INDIANA CODE § 35-50-5-3, (“the restitution statute”), provides, in relevant part, as follows:

(a) ․ in addition to any sentence imposed under this article for a felony or misdemeanor, the court may, ․, order the person to make restitution to the victim of the crime ․ The court shall base its restitution order upon a consideration of:

(1) property damages of the victim incurred as a result of the crime, based on the actual cost of repair (or replacement if repair is inappropriate);

(2) medical and hospital costs incurred by the victim (before the date of the sentencing) as a result of the crime;

(3) the cost of medical laboratory tests to determine if the crime has caused the victim to contract a disease or other medical condition;

(4) earnings lost by the victim (before the date of sentencing) as a result of the crime including earnings lost while the victim was hospitalized or participating in the investigation or trial of the crime; and

(5) funeral, burial, or cremation costs incurred by the family or estate of a homicide victim as the result of the crime.

“Because restitution is penal in nature, the statute providing for restitution must be strictly construed against the State to avoid enlarging it beyond the fair meaning of the language used.” Morgan v. State, 49 N.E.3d 1091, 1094 (Ind. Ct. App. 2016).

[10] Hre specifically argues that the trial court abused its discretion when it ordered him to pay restitution to Mumford for her rental car expenses because the restitution statute does not provide for payment of such expenses. In support of his argument, Hre directs us to Person v. State, 93 N.E.3d 1126 (Ind. Ct. App. 2018). In the Person case, Person (“Person”) crashed his car into Rosa Bailey's (“Bailey”) car while fleeing from the police. Person subsequently pleaded guilty to multiple offenses, and the trial court ordered him to pay restitution for, among other things, the cost of Bailey's use of public transportation for the days that she did not have a car.

[11] Person appealed the restitution order and argued that the trial court had abused its discretion when it had ordered him to pay for Bailey's public transportation expenses because the restitution statute did not provide for the payment of such expenses. The State conceded that the trial court had abused its discretion.² We agreed and reversed that portion of the trial court's order that had ordered Person to pay restitution for Bailey's public transportation expenses. Person, 93 N.E.3d at 1127.

[12] We agree with Hre that the facts before us are analogous to the facts in the Person case. Specifically, the rental car expenses in this case are functionally indistinguishable from the public transportation expenses in Person. In other words, both the rental car expenses in this case and the public transportation expenses in Person represent the cost of alternative transportation incurred by a victim who lost the use of a vehicle as a result of the defendant's criminal conduct. In addition, neither expense falls within any of the restitution statute's five enumerated statutory categories. As a matter of public policy, it may make sense to order reimbursement of rental car expenses under the facts of this case, but it is a matter for our General Assembly to amend the statute governing what constitutes restitution in criminal cases.

[13] Based on the foregoing, we conclude that the trial court abused its discretion when it ordered Hre to pay Mumford restitution for her rental car expenses. Accordingly, we reverse the trial court's restitution order and remand with instructions for the trial court to enter a corrected restitution order. See Person, 93 N.E.3d at 1127. See also Springer v. State, 798 N.E.2d 431, 436 (Ind. 2003) (affirming this Court's determination that the trial court had abused its discretion in requiring Springer to pay the cost of airline tickets for the victim's father because “the General Assembly has not authorized the trial court to include this expense in its restitution order because none of the statutory restitution categories includes any language that could be construed to authorize it”), reh'g denied; Rich v. State, 890 N.E.2d 44, 53 (Ind. Ct. App. 2008) (reversing trial court's restitution order requiring Rich to pay for the cost of the victim's security system because no portion of the restitution statute could be construed to authorize such an order), trans. denied.³

[14] Reversed and remanded with instructions.

FOOTNOTES

1.   Hre also damaged Lynn Lewis’ (“Lewis”) property. He does not appeal the trial court's restitution order regarding Lewis.

2.   The State does not concede that the trial court abused its discretion in this case. Further, the State does not attempt to distinguish the facts in Person from the facts in the case before us.

3.   We note that the State's reliance on Akehurst, 115 N.E.3d at 515, is misplaced. In the Akehurst case, Akehurst (“Akehurst”) crashed his vehicle into Jennifer Noble's (“Noble”) van and fled from the scene. A trial court subsequently convicted him of Class B misdemeanor leaving the scene of an accident. At Akehurst's sentencing hearing, Noble testified that although her insurance company had issued her a payment for her totaled van, she still had $616.28 remaining on her loan for the van. Following the hearing, the trial court ordered Akehurst to pay Noble restitution, including the $616.28 for the remainder of her loan. On appeal, Akehurst argued that the trial court had abused its discretion when it had ordered him to pay Noble restitution for the $616.28 remaining on her loan. We disagreed and explained that the restitution statute allowed the trial court to order restitution for the actual cost to replace Noble's van, which included both the insurance payment and the $616.28 remaining on Noble's loan. Akehurst, 115 N.E.3d at 519. Accordingly, we concluded that the trial court had not abused its discretion when it had ordered Akehurst to pay Noble restitution for the $616.28 remaining on her loan. Id. However, the facts in Akehurst are distinguishable from the facts before us. Specifically, here, the trial court did not order Hre to pay Mumford reimbursement for the actual cost to replace the car. Rather, the trial court ordered Hre to pay Mumford reimbursement for her rental car expenses, which, as previously discussed, are not included in the restitution statute.

Pyle, Judge.

Mathias, J., and Weissmann, J., concur.