Suit Says Repo Men Got Rough with Girl

(CN) — A repo man yanked a young girl out of a car before driving away with it, two Ohio women complain in court.

Tiarra Palmer, the girl's mother, and Tamara Cohen sued Faisal Dabbas and his Akron-based Best-N-Value Auto Sales business on Aug. 4 in Summit County Common Pleas Court.

Cohen bought a 2003 Hyundai Sonata from Dabbas in 2014. Several months later, she lost her job and could not keep up the bi-weekly payments of $150.

One day, Cohen and her niece, identified in court documents as MF, drove the car to the home of Leon Lofton, Cohen's brother.

Cohen alleged that while she was retrieving items from the house, two repo men showed up, with one demanding that MF get out of the car.

"John Doe 2" then pulled MF out of the car by the arm before entering it and driving away, according to the lawsuit.

Hearing the girl's screams, Cohen and Lofton dashed out of the house, the complaint says. Cohen says she thought her car was being stolen.

She reached inside the car and grabbed the wheel, pleading for John Doe 2 to stop, according to the lawsuit.

He said he was repossessing the car and kept driving, "dragging her the length of two or three houses," Cohen claims.

Since Cohen had never given Lofton's address to Dabbas, she claims the company used a secretly implanted GPS device to locate the car.

She also stated that Dabbas had retained a set of keys to allow the repo men to take the car.

According to Cohen, the trauma of being pulled out of the car has exacerbated her niece's "fragile mental health condition and poor social skills, as she now regularly experiences nightmares and suffers increased social anxiety and a debilitating fear and distrust of adults."

Cohen stated that she suffered foot and leg injuries from being dragged down the street.

After the incident, Cohen got a ride to Dabbas' business and paid $500 to reclaim her car.

Cohen and Palmer sued Dabbas and the repo man for assault, battery, wrongful repossession, negligence, conversion, infliction of emotional distress and violation of the Consumer Sales Practices Act.

Attorney Tamara Parker of The Legal Aid Society of Columbus is representing the plaintiffs, along with Erin Spencer of Community Legal Aid Services Inc. of Akron.

The defendants did not reply to a request for comment.

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