FISHERS AUTO MALL INC v. MICHAEL LAMAR REYES

Let’s get one thing straight: you don’t just walk into a car dealership, drive off with a 2017 Chrysler 300C like it’s a free test drive from the apocalypse, and then ghost the whole situation like you’re starring in your own low-budget action movie. But apparently, Michael Lamar Reyes tried exactly that — or at least, that’s the story Fisher’s Auto Mall Inc. is selling to the court. And now, the Oklahoma car dealer is suing him for over $16,000, plus interest, legal fees, and whatever emotional damages you can slap on top when your customer treats your inventory like a Netflix rental with no return policy.

So who are these people? On one side, we’ve got Fisher’s Auto Mall Inc., a business that, based on the name alone, probably smells faintly of air fresheners shaped like pine trees and desperation. They’re the kind of place where you can “Drive Home Happy!” unless, of course, you default on your payments and become the subject of a civil lawsuit. Represented by not one, not two, but five attorneys from the firm Robinson, Hoover & Fudge, PLLC — yes, Fudge is a real name and also a perfect metaphor for how this whole thing smells — they’re clearly not messing around. This isn’t some mom-and-pop corner lot operation; they’ve got legal artillery ready to fire.

Then there’s Michael Lamar Reyes, lone defendant, solo act, leading man in what might be the world’s least glamorous financial thriller. We don’t know much about him — no criminal history cited, no dramatic backstory revealed — just that on September 2, 2023, he signed a contract to buy a used Chrysler 300C. That car, for the record, is the kind of vehicle that used to scream “I’m successful but also slightly midlife-crisis adjacent” back in 2017. Now? It screams “depreciated asset with questionable resale value.” Still, it was apparently worth enough to spark a legal war three years later.

Here’s how the plot thickened: Reyes bought the car under a financing agreement — standard stuff, probably involved credit checks, down payments, monthly installments, the whole song and dance. But at some point, the music stopped. He stopped making payments. The filing doesn’t say why — maybe he lost his job, maybe the car broke down, maybe he got hit by a meteor — but whatever the reason, he defaulted. And when you default on a car loan, especially through a dealership that has lawyers on speed dial, things get… official.

Fisher’s Auto Mall didn’t sit around crying into their profit margins. They repossessed the vehicle — likely with the quiet efficiency of people who’ve done this too many times to feel bad about it — and then did the next logical thing: sold it. That’s how these contracts usually work. You don’t pay? They take the car back and try to recoup their losses at auction or through a private sale. But here’s the kicker: even after selling the Chrysler — which, again, was nearly seven years old by the time this went south — they still didn’t make enough to cover what Reyes owed. After all the math, there was a deficiency balance of $16,108.57. That’s not chump change. That’s a vacation to Bali. That’s a down payment on a different car. That’s enough to make any dealership lawyer pick up the phone and say, “Oh no, we’re suing.”

And so they did. The legal claim? Breach of contract — which, in plain English, means: “You signed a piece of paper saying you’d pay us, and you didn’t.” It’s not rocket science, but it is the backbone of capitalism. No one gets to just take stuff and vanish. At least, not without consequences. The lawsuit doesn’t ask for the car back — it’s already gone, sold off like last season’s fashion. Instead, they want cold, hard cash: $16,108.57 in principal, plus over a thousand dollars in interest accrued at a rate of 12.9% per year (which, let’s be honest, is not crazy for a defaulted auto contract, but still high enough to make your credit card wince), plus court costs, plus a “reasonable attorney fee.” That last one is key — in Oklahoma, if you win a contract case, you can often make the loser pay your lawyer. So Michael Lamar Reyes isn’t just on the hook for the car he couldn’t afford — he might also have to pay for the guy who sued him.

Now, is $17,135.81 — the total damages sought — a lot? Depends on your perspective. If you’re a car dealership moving dozens of vehicles a month, it’s a rounding error. But if you’re one guy trying to get around town without public transit, that number could be life-ruining. For context, the average annual income in Oklahoma County is around $60,000. So we’re talking about nearly a third of someone’s yearly take-home pay — gone, because of a car payment gone rogue. And yet, from the dealership’s point of view, they’re not asking for revenge. They’re asking to be made whole. They didn’t profit from this deal. They lost money. And in the wild west of auto financing, where interest rates gallop like mustangs and repossession teams ride at dawn, someone’s gotta eat the loss. Fisher’s Auto Mall is just making sure it’s not them.

So what’s our take? Look, we’re not here to judge whether Michael Lamar Reyes is a deadbeat or a victim of bad timing. Maybe he got sick. Maybe his hours got cut. Maybe the Chrysler had a cursed transmission. The filing doesn’t say, and we’re entertainers, not investigators. But what is absurd — deliciously, darkly absurd — is how this all escalates. A man buys a slightly dated luxury sedan, misses some payments, and suddenly there’s a five-lawyer legal squad chasing him for nearly seventeen large. The Chrysler? Long gone, probably now being driven by some unsuspecting guy named Chad who thinks he got a “great deal” on Facebook Marketplace. Meanwhile, the original buyer is now tangled in a lawsuit that could follow him for years, wreck his credit, and cost him way more than the car was ever worth.

And let’s talk about that interest rate — 12.9%. Let that sink in. That’s higher than most credit cards. Higher than personal loans. It’s the kind of number that quietly strangles people who are already struggling. Was this predatory? Maybe not illegally so — Oklahoma allows it — but ethically? Eh. When a dealership can charge that much interest, then repossess the car, sell it for less than the debt, and still come after you for the difference plus legal fees, the system starts to feel less like justice and more like financial whack-a-mole.

Do we root for the little guy? Sure, in theory. But do we also understand that businesses can’t just hand out cars like free samples at Costco? Also sure. The real villain here might not be Reyes, and it might not be Fisher’s Auto Mall — it might be the entire American auto financing machine, where people are one missed paycheck away from a lawsuit over a used sedan with heated seats.

So here’s hoping someone learns a lesson. Maybe Reyes learns to read the fine print. Maybe Fisher’s Auto Mall learns to maybe, just maybe, offer a payment plan before going full litigation. Or maybe — just maybe — the court sees this for what it is: not a tale of good versus evil, but of two parties caught in a system that turns car payments into courtroom drama.

Either way, we’re keeping score. And the Chrysler? Last seen heading west on I-40, playing “Hotel California” on a cracked iPhone aux cord.