Taking It Out on an Ex’s Car

Added: 2026-05-19

[00:00:00][music] This is the plaint of Donald Fay. He says he and the defendant were in a relationship and he decided to let her use one of his cars, which she damaged and now that they've split, won't pay to repair. Besides, the defendant's also upset they're not together anymore. But what's right is right. And he wants the $3,29453 he needs to get the car fixed.

[00:00:29][music] This is the defendant, Dana Dilks. She says she returned the car all cleaned up, waxed, and in great shape.

[00:00:37]The plaintiff is claiming she caused all this damage to the thing, but it's only normal wear and tear. The car did get keyed once in front of the plaintiff's house, and the plaintiff even told her one of his neighbors did it because they don't like him. Is that her fault? She's accused of taking it out on an ex-boyfriend's car.

[00:01:00]>> I get for you, honor.

[00:01:02]>> Thank you, Douglas.

[00:01:02]>> Welcome. Donald Fay, you are suing your former girlfriend Dana Dilks for $3,29453 that you say she owes you in order to repair the car that she trashed while in her care. Okay. What happened?

[00:01:15]>> Well, uh, the defendant's estrange husband was threatening to take her mode of transportation away from her, preventing her from being able to get to work and care for her children. Okay.

[00:01:22]>> Um, we were in a relationship. I didn't feel that that was very fair to put her in that position, and I had a vehicle that I was preparing to sell that I agreed to loan to Dana for that time period.

[00:01:31]>> Okay. How long had you been dating?

[00:01:33]>> We I guess two months about that point.

[00:01:35]>> Okay, go on.

[00:01:36]>> Um, for circumstances that were beyond Dana's control, the car being in her possession went from a couple of weeks, which was what we originally agreed on, to several months. Um, over the course of that several months, I saw that there was damage to the car. And every time I brought the damage up, when I spoke to Dana about it, she would say, "Well, when I'm done with it, send me a bill."

[00:01:54]Um, I also have that >> What kind of damage?

[00:01:56]>> Uh, it's it's surface damage. It's not really that extensive, but because of the type of car that it is and the amount of labor required to repair it, the amount of damage is substantial.

[00:02:04]>> Okay. What kind of car is it?

[00:02:06]>> It's a 2002 ES300 Lexus.

[00:02:08]>> Okay. And but when you say surface image, what do you mean? Like dings and nicks, and >> there's dings, nicks, scratches down to the body of the car. There's two significant scrapes on the car. Um, one scrape looks as if it was driven over a curb and then therefore scrape the undercarriage. Uh the back bumper has several license plates imprints probably from backing out of spots to get out of parallel parked spots. Um the front >> Did you know that she couldn't drive?

[00:02:31]>> Uh I >> That's not normal. It's not a bumper car. What? Like how said, Did you know when you loaned her the car that your girlfriend can't drive?

[00:02:37]>> I always drove.

[00:02:38]>> So you really didn't know when you loaned her one of your cars?

[00:02:41]>> Well, I was trying to be a nice guy.

[00:02:42]What do you do? You see somebody who needs >> Well, YOU I I KNOW WHAT I DO. I see the first Nick, I say, "Hand me the keys."

[00:02:47]And I take the car back. But not you because you felt bad.

[00:02:50]>> I did feel bad. And again, I took Dana at her word. When she said that when she was finished with the car, I would be able to send her a bill. I figured she'd make good on her word. And >> And did she?

[00:02:59]>> No, she did not.

[00:02:59]>> Look at that. All right. So, now you dated for how long?

[00:03:02]>> Uh about 6 months?

[00:03:03]>> And she had the car for how long?

[00:03:05]>> She had the car for about four.

[00:03:06]>> The car was in her possession after our relationship ended as well.

[00:03:09]>> After. And why did you guys break up?

[00:03:11]>> Uh just didn't work out. No reason.

[00:03:12]>> Okay. Was there bad blood between the two of you after the breakup? Mutual or was it your choice?

[00:03:17]>> It was my my choice to end the relationship. I believe that after discussing that for a couple weeks, we both agreed it was the best thing for both of us.

[00:03:24]>> And she keeps the car for how much longer after the breakup?

[00:03:26]>> Uh, about three weeks.

[00:03:26]>> All right. So, now you have the car. And according to you, it's $3,200. $3,300 worth of damage. That's a lot. That's a lot. It's not like $800 to fix a few scratches. It's $3,200. I mean, that's that's almost half the value of the car.

[00:03:42]>> So, you're asking a lot. So, explain yourself. Show me pictures of all that damage. Sure.

[00:03:47]>> And talk to me. What happened? What did you do? put bumper cars with his car?

[00:03:50]>> I did not. I'm a very good driver.

[00:03:52]>> Scratched up. You think he's exaggerating?

[00:03:54]>> I think he is exaggerating.

[00:03:55]>> Why?

[00:03:56]>> Um I know that this car was it was an older car and he was preparing to sell it and I have a feeling that he would like to get it into condition to be sold at my expense.

[00:04:06]>> Okay. And how much how old was the car when you were had borrowed it?

[00:04:10]>> It was 2002. So >> 2002. And you borrowed it when? In 2008 or 2009?

[00:04:14]>> 2010. The year.

[00:04:15]>> So the car was 8 years old and then it it had Nick. Are you saying the nicks and scratches were there or do you saying you didn't put any on or >> I'm saying I did not drive recklessly in the car and I did not >> Did you Did the car get damaged while in your care and did it get more did you end up backing it up or people backing into you in parking spaces where there's a nick here, a scratch there, a license plate mark there, that kind of thing.

[00:04:34]>> When I was driving it, I took care of it. I did not bump bumpers with it. It's it's a rather large car, so you have to be a little bit careful with it parking in the city. Um I don't know what would have happened when I wasn't watching the car when it was parked. or did you notice all the scratches he's complaining about?

[00:04:48]>> The only scratch that I did notice was there is on the passenger side. Somebody keyed the car um when it was directly parked in front of his house one night because um whenever I was at his house, I was always parked on the street almost in front of his house or one up or one down. And he has two other cars. And the day that we found out that it was keyed, he said to me that maybe one of his neighbors keyed it because he had several cars parked in the street and it irritated them.

[00:05:12]>> Do you remember that?

[00:05:13]>> No.

[00:05:14]>> At all?

[00:05:14]>> No. I remember the car being keyed, but I don't believe that that's what happened to the car.

[00:05:19]>> Do you remember it being keyed while parked at your >> I remember the car being keyed and I noticed it several weeks after it had happened. She said that it happened in front of my house.

[00:05:26]>> But when she said that to you, you didn't say, "How do you know?"

[00:05:29]>> Or did she say, "We discussed it. Don't you remember?"

[00:05:32]>> No, she did not.

[00:05:33]>> We discussed that.

[00:05:34]>> So when she said to you, "It happened in front of your house," didn't you say to her, "Why didn't you tell me before now?"

[00:05:38]>> Yeah, we discussed that. And the response I got was, "Send me a bill."

[00:05:41]And I have text messages.

[00:05:42]>> No, no, no, no. You're not doing that.

[00:05:44]>> Excuse me.

[00:05:45]>> Listen, you discover several weeks after the fact that it's been keyed. How do you know that it was several weeks after the fact?

[00:05:51]>> Because that's what she told me when I brought it up.

[00:05:53]>> And what did she say to you?

[00:05:54]>> She said, "This happened in front of your house a couple of weeks ago."

[00:05:57]>> And then, do you not say, "What the hell? Why didn't you tell me when it happened 3 weeks ago? Why am I coming upon it by accident?" Like, IN OTHER WORDS, IF I BORROWED my boyfriend's car and I noticed it got keyed, it might come up when I'm talking to him. So, did you not think it odd that she did not bring it up? If if the scenario is the way you say and not the way she says, then the way you say, I would expect you to be outraged when you find out that she didn't bring it up. What happened there?

[00:06:25]>> Every time we discussed damage to the car, the response I got was, "When I'm finished with the car, send me a bill."

[00:06:30]I took her at her word. We were in a relationship. We got along well.

[00:06:32]>> Did you ever say to him, "Send me a bill. Send me a bill."

[00:06:35]>> Um, I did. That was way later at the very end of our relationship when we were arguing and he was berating me via text and he would argue with me and put me >> berate you via text.

[00:06:43]>> Um he would call me names call.

[00:06:46]>> Do you have any of those texts?

[00:06:47]>> Um I do not have any of them. My phone >> the text that he provided are perfectly civil. Right.

[00:06:52]>> There's no there's no berating going on intense patience.

[00:06:54]>> I lost my phone two weeks ago and I lost all those text messages.

[00:06:58]>> Your homework too. when we were arguing via text and he was sending me his mean text messages, I would just respond, okay, most of the time or just the letter K and it got to the point where he was, you know, basically yelling at me via text. So, I did say flippantly and sarcastically, send me a bill. But, I mean, when I had the car after two weeks, I had said to him, I think that everything's okay with my car. I'm going to start driving my car again and leave the Lexus here. And he said to me, no, I like you driving the car cuz it pisses your ex-husband off.

[00:07:25]>> And he wanted to piss your ex-husband off more than you did.

[00:07:28]>> Yes. Well, he Oh, I did. And obviously, I still drove it. That was my mistake. I should have put, you know, stuck to it and returned the car at that moment.

[00:07:37]>> That was my fault. Can I just say something about the text messages? Um, on an iPhone, you can easily delete certain text messages out.

[00:07:45]>> You want to appear to This is a letter you sent to him saying, "I'm not uh I've received your plethora of text messages and emails, and I'm not going to respond because I don't want to subject be subjected to you berating me with hurtful and unnecessary comments." I guess those are the ones you feel were deleted.

[00:07:59]>> Yes.

[00:08:00]>> Did you delete any of the the track of messages?

[00:08:03]>> I did not.

[00:08:03]>> You want to appear to others as though you are on the up and up. However, at this point, you are trying to hurt me in any way possible since I will no longer entertain any communication with you.

[00:08:13]>> Now you involve my ex-husband. How feeding him multiple lies. How did he involve your ex-husband?

[00:08:17]>> Um, he I have a child support case. I had at the time a child support case with my with my ex-husband and he told him that I had cheated on my ex-husband to enrage him and then he also told him how much money my new contract was for which could have hurt my child support case at the time.

[00:08:33]>> Simply stated you are not the person that you want people to believe you are.

[00:08:36]Did you really have communication with your ex-husband?

[00:08:37]>> I did but not in the context in which she refers you have it in >> what I told him was that he should get updated financial information.

[00:08:44]>> Yeah, that's sort of seedy.

[00:08:45]>> Yeah.

[00:08:46]>> On your part.

[00:08:46]>> I never said anything about her cheating on her ex-husband. In fact, this is news to me.

[00:08:50]>> Well, you're clearly trying to sabotage your child support case and then, you know, and and give him clues that, you know, only from your own pillow talk and especially the multitude of texts where you took every opportunity to try and rip apart my character, my private issues, and belittling me into a What's that about?

[00:09:04]>> He was upset when we when our relationship was ending. We had been in a non-exclusive relationship that he could not cop a non-exclusive relationship.

[00:09:14]>> A not exclusive.

[00:09:15]>> Not exclusive, right? which meant that we could see other people if we wanted to, but that's not how it was. It was unccommunicated. We didn't see other people. Um, when we started having problems, he said to me, "I want to downgrade us to casually dating." I said, "Okay."

[00:09:27]>> He said, "Downgrade us to casually dating."

[00:09:29]>> And so, I went out on a date and he got upset.

[00:09:32]>> Did you use that phrase just Okay, so go ahead.

[00:09:34]>> That's Well, he did that and then he also on Facebook he changed his relationship status with me to single.

[00:09:39]So, that was how I found out what was going on.

[00:09:42]>> So, I went Facebook, right? [laughter] So, I went out on a date. We were casually dating now. I went out on a date and that was what set him off and he got upset and said, "The corpse wasn't cold yet. I can't believe you would go out and date." And that's when our relationship really started to take, you know, a turn for really not being able to talk to each other now.

[00:09:59]>> How did he find out about the date?

[00:10:00]>> You told him.

[00:10:01]>> Cuz you were trying to get him jealous.

[00:10:02]>> No, cuz we were casually dating. The casually dating means I can see whoever.

[00:10:06]Cat's even more casual than non-exclusive. So, I can do whatever I please at that point.

[00:10:10]>> What's non-exclusive?

[00:10:12]>> Was that like a status on Facebook?

[00:10:13]>> No. [laughter] No, it's not. It's not exclusivity.

[00:10:17]>> Had you two discussed, "Well, we're not exclusive."

[00:10:20]>> He definitely said it all the time, even though his his 14-year-old daughter kept saying, "She's your girlfriend. She's here all the time."

[00:10:25]>> I'm not sure how he strayed from the car. Quite honestly, >> I don't know either. I was just thinking the same thing. Isn't that a coincidence?

[00:10:30]>> The only thing I'd like to say, >> here's the problem with the car. Tell me how I get over the part that's bothering me, which is it's an 8-year-old car and you want to you want to now clean every single little nook on it. Every little scratch.

[00:10:42]>> That's not every nook. That's only the damage that occurred to the car when I loaned it to her.

[00:10:46]>> How do you You say that, but how do I know that that's true? How are you proving that that's true? I have to know like, did these scratches happen in her care, didn't they?

[00:10:54]>> And welcome back to the People's Court.

[00:10:56]Harvey Leven here. Should this guy get money for the alleged scratches that she caused?

[00:11:01]>> No, absolutely not.

[00:11:02]>> Why?

[00:11:04]>> Because he didn't complain at the time and he does can't prove she did the scratches.

[00:11:07]>> Well, she did maybe some of the scratches.

[00:11:10]>> Maybe not, though.

[00:11:11]>> Well, maybe not. But let's assume she did some. Should she pay anything?

[00:11:14]>> No. He He didn't care at the time, so he shouldn't care now.

[00:11:17]>> Fair enough. Spoken like a true woman.

[00:11:19]>> Thank Whoa. Wait. [laughter] >> Going inside the courtroom.

[00:11:23]>> You know, the only thing that definitely happened while it was in her care was the keying of the car. So, let's assume for a moment that the keying would be a deliberate act by a third party, right?

[00:11:33]Why would she have to pay for that?

[00:11:36]>> Who knows where that happened? She said it happened in front of my house.

[00:11:38]>> Your house or her house? Well, she lives a block away from her ex-husband who was jealous over the fact that she was dating, which is why this whole car issue came to be.

[00:11:45]>> Say that again.

[00:11:46]>> I'm not accusing her ex-husband of doing this. I'm only making the statement that he could have done this because he was and he would if you could prove that he that you could sue him, but why would why would it be her fault that she has to pay rent? If she rented a car from a car rental agency and those damages occurred, she'd be held responsible for them.

[00:12:02]>> She didn't rent a car from a car. You should have rented a car from a car rental.

[00:12:05]>> I should have. She didn't rent a car from a car rental agency. She borrowed a car from you and you don't know that that she did it. You can't prove that it was her ex-husband.

[00:12:20]>> No, I can't. But I loaned somebody a car in good faith on their word and I got it back in less desirable position.

[00:12:25]>> Let me tell you something. I I am having a hard time getting around the fact that the car had eight years in your care and six months in hers and that you you're trying to repair soup to nuts everything that was wrong with that car. You're saying every scratch, but you haven't seen that.

[00:12:38]>> If it had been less greedy, I might have looked at it less carefully. Verdict for the defendant.

[00:12:47]>> All right. So, so it looks like uh the plaintiff here tried to get her to pay for every single thing that was wrong with that car, whether it was her responsibility or whether it happened in her care or not.

[00:12:58]>> I don't think that that's a very fair statement for the judge to have made. I only claimed what took place with the car when the car was in defendant's care, not anything else that was there.

[00:13:05]I submitted a certification to the court explaining that there was other issues involved that were not included in the bill.

[00:13:11]>> Okay. All right. You head right around the corner here. All right. Let's see what she has to say about the outcome here. Uh step right up here. You satisfied how this verdict comes in?

[00:13:18]>> I'm very satisfied.

[00:13:19]>> What What happened here?

[00:13:21]>> Um I'm not really sure exactly. I did nothing wrong with the car. So, I'm glad that the judge could see that.

[00:13:26]>> What did you see in him when your relationship was good?

[00:13:28]>> When it was good. We were It was a lot of fun. We were able to be relaxed and hang out. We both have kids. The kids got along fabulously.

[00:13:35]>> He has a good sense of humor.

[00:13:36]>> He has a great sense of humor.

[00:13:38]>> And then what happened?

[00:13:39]>> Um I He tried to teach me a lesson, I guess, and downgrade the relationship and I went out on a date and it ended.

[00:13:46]So >> what's the label on the relationship now?

[00:13:48]>> Um we're not really on speaking terms anymore.

[00:13:51]>> Harvey, >> here's the deal. Damages cannot be speculative. When you go into court and you're asking for a certain amount of money, you got to prove that amount and in many courts, prove it to the penny.

[00:14:00]And that will do it for this case.

[00:14:01]litigance for the next case on the way into the courtroom right now.