complaint buchanan

8/8/2019 Complaint Buchanan

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IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OFTHE TWELFTH JUDICIAL CIRCUIT, INAND FOR SARASOTA COUNTY,FLORIDA

RICHARD THOMAS,

Plaintiff,

vs. CASE NO:

SARASOTA 500, LLC, a Florida Limited LiabilityCompany d/b/a SARASOTA FORD, VERNONG. BUCHANAN and BUCHANAN ENTERPRISES,

Defendants. /

COMPLAINT

Plaintiff, RICHARD THOMAS, sues the Defendants, SARASOTA FORD,

BUCHANAN ENTERPRISES and VERNON G. BUCHANAN and states:

1. This is a cause of action for damages within the jurisdiction of the court.

2. The Plaintiff is a resident of Sanford, Florida and over the age of 21 and

otherwise sui juris.

3. The Defendant, Vernon G. Buchanan (“Buchanan”) is a resident of Long

Boat Key, Sarasota County, Florida over the age of 21 and otherwise sui juris.

4. The Defendant, Sarasota 500 is a Buchanan Enterprise Company (“BE”)

authorized to do business and doing business at 707 South Washington Boulevard,

Sarasota, Florida.

5. At all times material hereto, the Plaintiff was employed by the Defendant,

Sarasota 500 as the Director or Fixed Operations.



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6. As the Director of Fixed Operations, Plaintiff was responsible for the parts

department, service department and body shop profitability. The rental car manager

also reported to Plaintiff.

7. The Plaintiff worked directly under Buchanan and Ernie Parisi (“Parisi”),

the stores General Manager (“GM”).

8. The Plaintiff was hired as fixed operations director to make the parts,

service and body shops profitable.

9. When Plaintiff was hired, the customer satisfaction index (“CSI”) for those

operations was the worst in the region.

10. The Plaintiff was proud of his ability to turn the operation from the worst in

the region in two years to make it the best in the region and win the President’s Award.

11. He was very proud of the manner in which the customers were treated by

the service department under his direction.

CATTLEMAN PROPERTY

12. While working at the dealership, the Plaintiff was taken into the confidence

of Buchanan and given an opportunity to participate in a business deal with Buchanan.

13. Buchanan told him that if he could put the deal together that he would take

care of him and that that would be his future.

14. He was told he could use the money to become a partner in his own store

or not, that would be the Plaintiff’s choice.

15. Plaintiff would be able to decide when that would be as well.

16. Plaintiff performed his part of the agreement, got everything completed



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and then Buchanan renegged on his promise.

17. The subject property was a piece of property that the body shop had been

relocated to on Cattleman Road in Sarasota, Florida.

18. The body shop was in an existing building on the property which Sarasota

500 converted to meet their body shop needs.

19. Buchanan wanted to own the property, but the negotiations had fallen

through and there was an absolute inability of Buchanan or his designee and attorney,

John Tosch (“Tosch”) to communicate with the owner, Charles Miller (“Miller”).

20. When Plaintiff was hired at Sarasota 500 they had been attempting to

make the purchase from Mr. Miller for some time. Everything had gone wrong.

21. Miller had been dealing with Tosch.

22. Tosch and Miller reached such a strong personality conflict that Miller had

decided he would not sell the property to Buchanan.

23. When they didn’t exercise the option to purchase in a timely manner, Mr.

Miller had had all he could stand, exercised his right to have them vacate the premises

and told Buchanan to leave.

24. Two weeks after the Plaintiff was hired the problems concerning

negotiations between Sarasota Ford and Charles Miller were brought to him.

25. They had a significant investment in the property at that point and the

Plaintiff was called upon to smooth things over to salvage the transaction.

26. It was ironic that they were still attempting to finish the construction that

they were doing on the property which was half done and they were trying to do



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business out of it, the end of the lease had come and Mr. Miller was telling them to get

out and they were still trying to get people to finish what they had paid them to do in

connection with the construction.

27. At that point the Plaintiff went to meet with Mr. Miller to see if he could

salvage the purchase option of the property.

28. The Plaintiff called every vendor and Mr. Miller, had a meeting at the

property to address everybody’s concerns, came up with a plan to solve them, executed

the plan, got the construction done, got the business operating and then addressed the

concerns of Mr. Miller.

29. Miller had told the Plaintiff and Buchanan in a meeting that he would not

deal with Tosch but that he would deal with Plaintiff and would continue to go forward as

long as he did not have to deal with Mr. Tosch and could deal with the Plaintiff.

30. Buchanan promised the Plaintiff that he would give him 25% of the value

of the business above $1.2 million if he could salvage the deal.

31. Plaintiff succeeded in turning Miller around, getting the transaction

completed and getting the building 90% remodeled.

32. The dealership, through a sequence of leases, took over more and more

square footage of the property and put a $50,000 deposit which was non-refundable

that went to the seller.

33. Mr. Miller did not want to pay capital gains so the deal was structured so

that it could take into consideration Mr. Miller’s tax consequences.

34. It consisted in a series of leases so that as his leases ran out, Sarasota



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500 would take over additional square footage and eventually would have control over

the entire facility and after they took over the last square footage they would give him a

$50,000 non-refundable deposit to execute a purchase of the property or Miller had the

option to finance it himself.

35. These leases were structured by the Plaintiff and Charles Miller under the

direction of Buchanan.

36. They had agreed upon the ultimate purchase price subject to the leases.

THE BUCHANAN AGREEMENT

37. The agreement between Plaintiff and Buchanan was memorialized by a

written agreement.

38. Plaintiff was not able to find his copy of the agreement and requested

Tosch to furnish him with a copy of the agreement.

39. The copy Tosch furnished Plaintiff is attached as Exhibit 1.

40. The Plaintiff typed Exhibit 1 on January 31, 2001, after he had been taken

to lunch by Buchanan and told that this is what Buchanan wanted him to do to tie him to

the store so that he wouldn’t leave and he would stay with the corporation.

41. Buchanan stated, “I want to do this for you as additional part of your

compensation to tie you to the store with golden handcuffs” so that the Plaintiff wouldn’t

accept or entertain any additional offers of employment from his competitors.

42. As can be seen, the document originally stated: “Tenure, Began for this

purpose 8/23/99 and will concluded 8/23/09. Vesting at 10% per year on an annual

basis.”



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43. At the time that the document was executed that provision was stricken

through and the Defendant, Buchanan inserted the phrase, “Richard has to be

employed.”

44. Upon receipt of the document the Plaintiff noticed that Vern Buchanan had

made two additional changes to the document after it was signed and initialed by

Plaintiff.

45. Change One. Buchanan struck out the word “owned” 25% and substituted

“Will have option to buy” and initialed that. Plaintiff never saw, initialed or agreed to this

change.

46. Change Two. Buchanan also made a notation “For purchase of” and then

some word that is illegible. Neither Buchanan nor Plaintiff initialed this change. Plaintiff

never saw it or agreed to it.

47. Neither of these later changes is initialed by the plaintiff.

48. At the time that Plaintiff was terminated by the dealership he asked

Buchanan about the provision that required him to be employed by the dealership and

was told that since he did not quit but was terminated it would not affect his rights to the

25% under the agreement. Buchanan confirmed that he did not have to be employed by

Sarasota 500 notwithstanding the agreed upon revision.

49. When Buchanan inserted this provision he explained it to Plaintiff as being

“his golden handcuffs” to keep the Plaintiff in his employ and stated that that was the

reason he wanted that provision in there.

50. In reliance on that explanation, Plaintiff initialed the change representing



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that he could not leave for another job.

51. The intent of the parties at the time it was executed being that Vern

Buchanan wanted the Plaintiff to continue in Buchanan’s employ and this would provide

an incentive for him to remain in his employ. However, since he was terminated by

Buchanan and it would be impossible for him to continue in his employ, Buchanan

agreed that it would be unreasonable and unfair to enforce that provision since it failed

of its essential purpose which was for Buchanan to have “golden handcuffs” on the

Plaintiff to keep him in his employ.

52. When Plaintiff was terminated involuntarily by Buchanan, he asked

Defendant Buchanan about that provision and Buchanan said not to worry and that he

wasn’t going to enforce it since he was terminated rather than quitting of his own

volition.

MEETINGS

53. With respect to Buchanan’s involvement in the business, the Plaintiff was

located at Sarasota Ford which was the flagship store where Buchanan’s office was

located.

54. Buchanan was at the meetings that happened in that office and had day to

day knowledge of what was going on in that store.

55. Plaintiff and Buchanan also attended various meetings involving all of the

dealerships. At these meetings, the attendees would discuss the direction of the

business, ways of doing business, and a lot of matters that were really out of the scope

of the Plaintiff’s position at the dealership.



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56. The primary focus of these meetings was how to increase production,

meet production goals, provide incentives and increase profitability.

57. There were monthly meetings where the financial statement was gone

over, the balance book of the store, who did what and how other dealerships were

doing.

58. The Plaintiff also had conversations with Buchanan and meetings with

Buchanan and others, sometimes weekly, sometimes bi-weekly but there was always

the monthly review.

59. Plaintiff paid particular attention to his scope of the business but each

department head was there and a review was made by each department.

60. Although Buchanan was not at every one of the meetings, he was at the

majority of the meetings and when he was there he was an active participant in the

meetings.

61. Tosch was also at these monthly meetings two-thirds of the time.

62. For Buchanan to have the success that he’s had in the business he had

knowledge of not only what was going on in the stores but in all of his business

undertakings and in fact would compare the results of each of the stores at the

meetings.

63. They had the P&L statements from all the different stores at the meetings

and the statistics for the operations at the different stores at their meetings and

Buchanan evidenced an active working knowledge of what was going on at all of the

stores.



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64. At the meetings, they discussed what worked and what didn’t work from

store to store.

65. The Sarasota 500 store General Manager was always present at these

meetings as were general managers from other stores from time to time.

66. They also had what were referred to as group meetings when all of the

general managers would come in and go over the entire operation of the corporation

and how everybody was doing.

67. Plaintiff did not attend all of these meetings but he attended some of them.

68. They were held on a monthly basis with all the partners.

69. From time to time, these meetings were held at different locations.

70. He was present at these meetings from time to time to review fixed

operations.

71. The same issues were discussed at these meetings involving charge

backs, kick backs, possible irregularities and people that worked consumer complaints

and so forth, as well as the P&L and employee problems.

72. The preload issue was discussed with all of the general managers at one

time or another with Buchanan.

PRELOADING

73. One of the issues addressed at these meetings that affected Plaintiff’s

area was preloading cars.

74. The purpose of preloading of the cars was to make additional gross.

75. At the time of the pre-delivery inspection various products and accessories



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were pre-loaded creating additional gross for each unit which made the prices very

healthy.

76. It also made additional gross for the Plaintiff’s department.77. Buchanan was present at discussions concerning these preloads and wasactive in putting the plan together.

78. As long as the Plaintiff was there that practice was never changed.79. There was discussion about, “How could we charge it when they could go

down the street and buy it for less?” The response was, “We’re going to charge it” eventhough it was higher and more than the competition was charging.

80. Some of the preloads were in an addendum on the window with the totalprice of those particular preloads, but not broken out individually by item.

81. It was the Plaintiff’s responsibility to do the work to get the product on thevehicle inventory.

82. The addendum was presented in such a way that it was not clear whetherthe product came from the factory or came from Buchanan.83. Many of the addendum stickers were done as packages which did not

include the individual items or costs so the consumer could have no way of knowingwhat he is paying for each item.

84. The addendum raised the retail selling price of the car.85. This was also Buchanan’s way of diverting profit from the sales

department commissioned employees to the service and parts department.86. The way it was structured was so that it would diminish the gross on which

the sales employees were paid, to the detriment of the salesmen. This way thedealership could retain more profit and avoid having to pay salesmen commissions.

87. Some products such as paint sealant, fabric guard, ETCH, etc. were sentout for sublet to vendors. This subletting was also discussed at these meetings.

88. The outside vendor was discussed and approved by Buchanan whoordered the outside vendor to put the products on the cars and who made the decisionon how much they would be charged per car.

89. The other things that were put on the car would be specialty wheels andtires, bug shields and the detailing during the pre-delivery inspection.

90. Plaintiff sees no problem with making a profit, however, the issue was howthe items were costed at the dealership.

91. They were costed at truckload purchase price to the dealership. If theywere put into inventory at that price there would be more gross profit and the salesmanwould be paid on that higher profit. However, they were costed at an artificially highfigure to create an inventory cost of more than their actual cost, skewing the costs insuch a way that the actual gross profit upon which the salesmen were paid was muchless than it would have been without the artificially inflated cost.

92. To Plaintiff’s knowledge, the salesmen did not know what the real costwas and did not know what the real charge to the car was.



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93. It was also presented to consumers in such a way that either they boughtthe car as equipped or they didn’t buy it, but that would be their only choice.

94. So that it’s clear, there were three cost items involved. One would be thecost to the dealership, the actual cost of the product to the dealership. Two would be

the inflated costs placed on the product in inventory. Three would be the cost to theconsumer which would have the additional profit above the inflated inventory cost.95. They would be costed out as if they were being purchased on an

individual basis when, in fact, they were either purchased on a palate or truck load basisat a considerable discount.

96. Buchanan would still stick to the higher individual cost to inflate theinventory cost to avoid paying commission on the real profit to the dealership.

97. On the subleted items they were billed directly through the office. Theywere not billed through the service department and the Plaintiff never saw them so hedoesn’t know what the real cost of those products were or how much money wasdiverted.

98. Plaintiff was paid a straight salary and not caught up in the game of tryingto figure out what the true profit was on any transaction.99. For example, it was clear that the salesmen did not know what was

included in their pack.100. I was asked repeatedly by salesmen what was included and I directed

them to their sales manager.101. By transferring the additional profit to the parts department where the

scale is much smaller, the dealer creates more profit to the dealership and lesscommission to the salesmen.

102. The additional money would be taken as profit or inventory reduction orput into other income.

103. At the time of predelivery inspection, every truck got a bed liner.104. The bed liner repair order was written, billed out and charged.105. There were other packages handled the same way, such as paint sealant,

fabric guard, tires, wheels, stripes, bug guards, floor mats, leather interior.

106. In some cases they were not put on the vehicle, but were still charged to

the vehicle.

107. The Plaintiff brought it to the attention of top management, including

Buchanan, that they were paying too much to the private vendors to install aftermarket

items.

108. He was told in response that it was a business decision, that they were



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their vendors and those were their costs.

109. Plaintiff believes the only reason they would tolerate such excessive

prices and diverting profits would be because they were getting kick backs from those

vendors. 110. Buchanan is too good of a businessman to pay more than the

vendors were worth. It would only make sense if the vendors were charging excessive

prices to reduce the commissionable gross and so Buchanan could receive an

additional profit by way of a kick back and not have to pay the salesmen.

CHARGEBACKS

111. Charge backs from lenders were always a subject of discussion at every

meeting.

112. Some of the charge backs were because cars had to be bought back.

113. Although this was not in the scope of Plaintiff’s employment, these

conversations occurred in his presence and he heard these conversations repeatedly.

114. Buchanan had those communications concerning the charge backs from

lenders and understood when the reasons for the charge backs were explained.

115. Charge backs could be as a result of a number of things: False

applications (that is fraudulent applications which were discovered when they were

checked by the lender); Power booking on cars (that is, items indicated as being on cars

which were not on cars so that the cars qualified for higher loans); falsification of other

documents that resulted in the bank calling the loan; among others.

116. During the meetings it was suggested that for the appraisal to be done

accurately that when a used car comes in that they create a booking sheet which would



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list all of the options on the car and all you had to do was pull the computer screen to

see what had been added.

117. This was objected to by the Sales Managers because it would eliminate

the ability of the sales department to power book the cars and get over advances on

them.

118. Ultimately, Tosch and Buchanan decided to not allow the service

department to do book out sheets to show what was really on the cars.

119. The decision was left to the office and sales management to take care of

booking out all cars rather than the service department during part of the pre-delivery

inspection.

120. It was clear that giving it to the service department would eliminate

powerbooking and the charge back problem created by powerbooking.

121. Nonetheless, Buchanan and Tosch made the conscious decision to not do

it that way.

122. The Plaintiff repeatedly questioned these decisions and the motivation

behind these types of decisions.

123. He did not gain in popularity by his questioning.

BAD PRACTICES

124. The Plaintiff also made it clear that he didn’t want to be involved in things

that weren’t as they should be or illegal.

125. As long as the deal got done Buchanan didn’t really express any concern

as to how it was done.



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126. This attitude was made apparent to Plaintiff time after time after time.

ILLEGAL ALIENS

127. When Plaintiff started his employment at Sarasota Ford there was a group

of 8 illegal aliens there.

128. Buchanan had imported them to do work on his house, specifically the

rock work and the floors.

129. He provided them sleeping quarters in the office beside the store.

130. There was a conversation about a political appointment of Buchanan to a

possible ambassadorship and the illegal aliens working at the store on payroll and

getting rid of the illegals immediately so he could distance himself from the issue.

131. This was done in a private conversation. He happened to be in the office

with Tosch when the conversation took place between Tosch and Buchanan. The

individual’s name was Tony.

132. The conversation was to the effect, “We need to get rid of Tony and we

need to do it now. I need to be distanced from any of the people that don’t have a green

card.”

133. The subject of the illegal aliens was brought up during the course of one of

the meetings. They paid close attention to the issue to make sure that everyone had to

have a social security card or a green card and that they had a specific employee at

Sarasota Ford who had to be released who had been a laborer in construction of the

primary residence of Buchanan and after that construction was working at the store, had

been working at the store and had actually been staying at the store but was released



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because he didn’t have a green card.

134. He had been employed at the dealership for some time at the time that he

was fired.

135. The individual, Tony, was receiving a payroll check from Sarasota Ford.

He was fired by Paul Doherty who thought enough of him and his outstanding working

ability that he cried when he had to fire him.

OFF SITE STORAGE

136. Many documents were kept off site at a storage facility at a farm owned by

Mr. Buchanan’s brother.

CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTION

137. During the 2000 Presidential campaign, the Defendant Sarasota 500

made a contribution of $1,000 to G. W. Bush’s campaign in the Plaintiff’s name. He got

a nice signed picture from George Bush.

138. His pay check was docked $1,000 and made up in the next pay check.

139. The $1,000 contribution to G.W. Bush’s campaign was taken from his

check and then added back to his check later.

140. It was his understanding that that was happening with all the managers.

141. Also, any time an official needed a vehicle for campaign purposes or

Buchanan needed a vehicle for campaign purposes he got it.

142. Vehicles were taken out of inventory for use in campaigns.

143. When the vehicles were taken out overnight and brought back he would

find campaign literature in the vehicles when he cleaned them up, along with billboards



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and posters and then he would have to have his people detail them and get them ready

for the customers.

144. He would store the campaign materials at the dealership and another

vehicle would go out with all the campaign materials in it.

145. The dealership was never paid for the use of these vehicles.

TAG AND TITLE ISSUE

146. Customers were charged $200 for title, tags and so forth which only cost

$160.

147. The $40 extra did not go back to the customer.

148. The Plaintiff questioned that in a meeting and said that they shouldn’t do

this. His request was ignored.

TERMINATION

149. Plaintiff was terminated when he disclosed to Buchanan that his wife had

been diagnosed with a brain tumor.

150. The Plaintiff’s wife’s diagnosis of the brain tumor came around the time

that the estimates and renewal of insurance and because of the changes and accruals

that would have been set up for her health, they put such a high dollar amount on the

accrual that it was not cost effective to keep the Plaintiff. Within 90 days of that he was

gone.

151. Plaintiff overheard Buchanan expressing his concern that her medical

condition could affect the company’s insurance costs in a discussion about insurance

costs.



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152. The Plaintiff was terminated in January of 2004.

153. The deal, the ultimate purchase of the Cattleman property, was

consummated within 90 days after the Plaintiff was terminated.

154. The Plaintiff was terminated while Buchanan was out of town.

155. When Buchanan got back into town and he found out Plaintiff was fired he

said, “I was out of town, don’t worry about it, we’ll get it worked out.”

156. Plaintiff later called Buchanan on the phone and set up an appointment to

meet with him, the “first meeting.”

157. At that first meeting, Plaintiff asked Buchanan if the Cattleman Property

Agreement was still in force and effect and Buchanan told him that it was.

158. Buchanan offered Plaintiff an opportunity to continue working for him for

an additional 6 months as fixed operations officer for all of the dealerships for $10,000

per month but without any insurance benefits.

159. He wouldn’t be an employee of Sarasota 500, he would be a consultant.

160. After this first meeting Plaintiff told Buchanan that he would get back to

him.

161. Plaintiff then set up was a second meeting where he declined Buchanan’s

offer.

162. Buchanan then offered the Plaintiff $9,000 in severance if he would sign a

complete release of any and all claims.

163. Plaintiff asked Buchanan if the release agreement would include the

Cattleman’s agreement and Buchanan said it would.



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164. Plaintiff declined this offer.

165. Plaintiff refused to sign any release and, therefore, did not receive the

$9,000 or the 25% value of the property above $1.2 million.

166. While Plaintiff was employed by Suncoast there were 2 other employees

Plaintiff knows of who were let go because of health issues.

167. A service writer hurt his knee and the comment was, “This is a problem. I

think he’s a fake. Get rid of him.”

168. There was technician that got something in his eye working and the

comment was, “He’s careless. This is the second time. He needs to go.”

169. Neither of these employees were counseled before being terminated and

they were ordered terminated by Tosch.

170. They were told they were being replaced because the dealership was

going a different direction and making changes.

171. The Plaintiff knows for certain that they were definitely terminated for

health issues.

172. The period of time was 2000 - 2001.

173. The Plaintiff had been through the NADA (National Automobile Dealer

Association) School which gave him enough information to ask questions about

wrongdoings he witnessed.

174. He asked a lot of questions and was told, “It is what it is. Leave it alone.

Go do your job.”

175. Although Plaintiff was selling more products, doing more service work,



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aftermarket items were thriving, putting products on virtually every car, his P&L profits

weren’t reflecting a big increase.

176. This is one of the things that the Plaintiff was questioning. Although the

way the Plaintiff was paid, it did not affect his pay plan and he was told to go do what he

does, it was affecting the parts managers and other who were on commissions.

177. The Plaintiff raised this issue with Buchanan himself on behalf of his

employees without a response.

178. He had been trained at that point to question the P&L statement.

179. Further, everyone wants to do more and do better.

180. The Plaintiff wanted to, quite frankly, prove his worth.

181. From his personal pride he wanted the numbers to accurately reflect how

they were doing.

182. He wanted to see that they were at a number that was consistent with

what production was.

183. In the final analysis if the numbers were what they should have been,

perhaps he would have been worth more and been able to have his salary raised as

well.

EARLY BOOKING

184. The witness also was aware that there were sales that were recorded prior

to the actual sale and delivery of the vehicle and these situations where the sale was

booked before it actually occurred, the warranty would start running.

185. It was booked to the manufacturer and the warranty would start running.



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186. The service writers had a problem with this issue.

187. They had people come in and would tell them a cost for performing a

repair and the customer would reply, “Well, wait a second, it’s under warranty.”

188. Then the service department would have to explain that the warranty is

time and distance and they would have a report from the manufacturer that said the

date the warranty started.

189. The customer would say, “Well that’s not when I bought it.”

190. Then they would have to go backwards and find out when the customer

actually bought their vehicle.

191. If the warranty started another time, the answer was given, “We made an

error in the office. We’ll take care of it.” which would take the form of being changed to

Ford Motor Company to change the date or in some cases the dealership would

purchase an extended warranty contract for the customer to make them happy.

192. Other times the dealer simply said, “We’ll give you some kind of discount.

Good luck with the rest.”

193. The fact is that it happened and customers were inconvenienced and lost

the benefit of their warranty.

SAFETY INSPECTIONS

194. Not every vehicle coming into the dealership went through safety

inspection but they were all charged for a safety inspection.

195. There were times the trades would come in and would be sold and put out

delivered before the Plaintiff ever saw the car even though he had the repair order and



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was prepared to do the work and the inspections, the car was gone and delivered.

196. He was told to go ahead and bill it and charge it and that when they came

back in he would do it and then he would never see the people.

197. This resulted in service charges being charged against consumers and

commissionable gross that were never performed.

198. State and Federal law requires that the dealer verify whether catalytic

converters and exhausts are still on the automobiles before they can be retailed.

199. Vehicles cannot be titled without this being done.

200. The Plaintiff knows for a fact that there were many times when it was not

done and somebody in the stores had to be falsifying these admissions statements in

order to get the title issued.

REPAIRS

201. Buchanan has his own re-insurance company for extended warranties.

202. Fidelity is the administrator but Buchanan owns the company.

203. Plaintiff was frequently instructed to reduce repairs or deny claims even

though he felt that the claims were legitimate in order to keep from depleting the funds

in Buchanan’s warranty account.

204. Plaintiff was absolutely told to watch what they were spending in the

account and to hold the expenses down because that was the company’s money.

205. There were several times the Plaintiff wanted to have repairs done for

customers and paid by the warranty.

206. He was told that he could be overruled and the only one who could call



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Fidelity and get that done and to authorize it would be Buchanan.

207. A general manager of the dealership was unable to override and take care

of those issues from the Plaintiff or the claims that he thought were legitimate claims.

CHANGING CONTRACTS

208. The Plaintiff recalls one incident involving a used car assistant manager,

first name Richard, that had taken the trade from a customer, taken the title to the car

and sold it and increased the amount of the loan from the customer that she had

received.

209. The customer contacted the Plaintiff as fixed operations director and said

she had a problem.

210. She came to him with her problem because she was happy with the

service she had received from him.

211. The issue she had was what she had agreed to her contract was up and

she still had payments and had been contacted about why she was behind in her

payments.

212. The Plaintiff pulled the deal and he found what was going on and turned it

over to Tosch who was to handle anything legal at the store.

213. Tosch was the first person to go to and Tosch had to communicate with

Mr. Parisi.

214. They ended up buying the woman’s car back or paying off the difference

in the loan amount and there was a court issue.

215. The Plaintiff recalls making the comment at the time, “Gee, I wonder how



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many more there are like this.” because the person involved was a long time employee

and Plaintiff was sure that this wasn’t an isolated event.

216. In other words, they were getting customers and having them sign

contracts and then changing the contracts on the customer after they had signed.

217. That’s exactly what happened with this instance.

218. To this day the Plaintiff doesn’t know how many others like it are out there.

DESTROYED RECORDS

219. Although Plaintiff was not personally present when records were

destroyed, Plaintiff is aware that there were times when he tried to pull records which

could not be found. The only reason that the Plaintiff could think of that they wouldn’t be

where they were supposed to be is that they had been destroyed. The Plaintiff does

recall a legal case where they were unable to find the file for review.

COUNT I

Breach of Contract

220. The Plaintiff realleges the allegations of the paragraphs 1 through 219 as

if fully set forth herein.

221. The Plaintiff has performed all conditions necessary to enforcement of the

agreement between the Plaintiff and Buchanan.

222. The Plaintiff has made the demand upon Buchanan to honor the

agreement between the parties.

223. The Defendant Buchanan has failed and refused to honor the agreement

between the parties.



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224. Plaintiff has been damaged by Buchanan’s refusal

225. Defendant Sarasota 500 owes the Plaintiff $9,000.

WHEREFORE the Plaintiff demands judgment against the Defendant Buchanan

for damages together with pre judgment and post judgment interest and costs and

demands trial by jury of all issues triable by law by jury.

COUNT II

Unjust Enrichment

226. The Plaintiff realleges the allegations of the 1 through 219 above as set

forth herein in their entirety.

227. The Plaintiff has performed services for the Defendant Buchanan at

Buchanan’s request and with promise of compensation.

228. Defendant Buchanan has received the benefit of those services.

229. The continued retention of the benefit of the service by Buchanan without

compensating the Plaintiff is unfair and unjust.

230. Defendant Sarasota 500 owes Plaintiff $9,000.

WHEREFORE the Plaintiff requests the court to enter judgment for the Plaintiff in

the amount of the benefits conveyed and conferred upon the Defendant by the Plaintiff

together with pre and post judgment interest and costs.

COUNT III

Quantum Meruit

231. The Plaintiff realleges the allegations of paragraphs 1 through 219 above

as set forth in their entirety.



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232. Defendant Buchanan requested the Plaintiff to perform services for him

and agreed to compensate the Plaintiff for the performance of those services.

233. The Plaintiff performed the services and the Defendant Buchanan has

refused to pay the Plaintiff for the performance of those services.


WHEREFORE the Plaintiff requests the court to determine the value of the

service performed by the Plaintiff for the Defendant and to award a judgment in the

amount of said damages together with prejudgment and post judgment interest and

cost.

COUNT IV

Fraud

235. The Plaintiff realleges the allegations of paragraphs 1 through219 above

as if set forth in their entirety.

236. The Defendant Buchanan told the Plaintiff that he could have an interest in

the profit from the Cattleman property in order to “place golden handcuffs” on the

Plaintiff to induce the Plaintiff to remain at the dealership and not pursue any other

business or employment opportunities.

237. The Plaintiff reasonably relied upon the Defendant Buchanan’s

representation that he would have an interest in the Cattleman property.

238. The Defendant Buchanan knew the statement to be false at the time it

was made.

239. As a direct result of the Plaintiff’s reliance upon the Defendant Buchanan’s



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false statement the Plaintiff sustained damages and did not receive the benefit he was

promised.



for damages together with pre judgment and post judgement interest and costs and

demands a trial by jury and reserves the right to amend the complaint to seek punitive

damages.

COUNT V

Misrepresentation

241. The Plaintiff realleges the allegation of paragraph 1 through 219 above as

if set forth herein in their entirety.

242. The Defendant Buchanan told the Plaintiff that he could have an interest in

the profit from the Cattleman property in order to “place golden handcuffs” on the

Plaintiff to induce the Plaintiff to remain at the dealership and not pursue any other

business or employment opportunities.

243. The Plaintiff reasonably relied upon the Defendant Buchanan’s

representation that he would have an interest in the Cattleman property.

244. The Defendant Buchanan knew the statement to be false at the time it

was made.

245. As a direct result of the Plaintiff’s reliance upon the Defendant Buchanan’s

false statement the Plaintiff sustained damages and did not receive the benefit he was

promised.



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for damages together with pre judgment and post judgment interest and costs and

demands a trial by jury and reserves the right to amend the complaint to seek punitive

damages.

DATED this ____ day of August, 2008.

LYONS & FARRAR, P.A. Attorneys for Plaintiffs

__________________________ DOUGLAS S. LYONS, ESQ.Florida Bar No. 128277325 N. Calhoun StreetTallahassee, FL 32301(850) 222-8811 (telephone)(850) 222-5583 (facsimile)E-mail: [email protected]

L:\DSL\Auto Task Force\1-Clients\Florida\Thomas, Richard\Complaint 8-7-08.wpd

complaint buchanan

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