Court Officer Gets Center Line Repair Shop to Pay Up

CENTER LINE, Mich. (WJBK) -- Melvin Rose has been fighting a gas station/repair shop for more than a year now. He took his car to the Citgo Autotopia in Center Line on December ninth of 2010.

Less than ten days later, he told us the "car just stalled out, died, started smoking. I open the hood thinking I blew the engine or something and, next thing I know, there's flames."

His car was totaled, and he claims it's all because the guys at the Autotopia did a shoddy job.

"From them disconnecting everything off the side of the [engine]. They didn't connect the fuel line up correctly. It had a slice in it. Well, they left that slice," Rose explained.

The owners say they did nothing wrong. Rose took them to small claims court and won a default judgment twice because the owners didn't make it to the court dates. More than a year later, Rose had yet to see a dime, so he brought his issue to the FOX 2 Problem Solvers. Lucky for him, 37th District Court Officer Paul Zalenski was watching.

"They'll give you a million reasons why they don't have to pay," he said.

However, Zalenski's job is to make them pay either with cash or property.

He was determined to get Rose's money, so he called a tanker truck to haul away nearly $4,000 worth of gas just in case the owners didn't want to fork over the cash.

They tried to negotiate and when all their talk didn't work, things got a little ugly, but after more than two hours, the owners handed over the cash and kept their gas.

Zalenski says most people don't realize that if they have a judgment and a seizure order, a court officer can help them get their money. Officers like Zalenski don't walk away empty handed.

"One of their avenues of collection is exactly this, getting an order to seize property and seeing if the court officer can seize enough property to cover their judgment," Zalenski explained.

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Madison Heights Man Wants Repair Shop to Pay after Car Totaled