Kalamazoo businessman Ryan Reedy will be forced to pay a default judgement in contract dispute case after losing a recent appeal.
Reedy owned Entertainment Managers LLC, a company that operated several popular wedding and event venues in downtown Kalamazoo’s Rosenbaum building — including Loft 310 and Skydeck.
After the COVID-19 pandemic forced delays or cancellations of many events, the company was hit with fourteen separate lawsuits from parties that claimed it failed to issue refunds for weddings scheduled in 2020 that could no longer be held on the planned dates.
Many of the suits were settled or have already been through the litigation process. Of those that went to trial, Reedy lost all but one case. This year, a suit filed by a man named James Joseph made it to the Michigan Court of Appeals.
Joseph, who is identified in court documents as the father of a bride whose wedding was planned at one of Reedy's venues for August 14, 2020, filed the suit in 2022. He claimed Reedy broke the contract he entered into by failing to pay back a $11,388 deposit Joseph had made even after the wedding could no longer be held on the scheduled date due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In 2022, a district court judge entered a default judgment ordering Reedy to pay Joseph $11,548 — the full deposit amount plus $160 in filing fees — after Reedy failed to respond to a complaint during the trial process.
Reedy appealed the judgment and it made it to the Michigan Court of Appeals. But in Late November of this year, two appellate court judges ruled to uphold the judgement. Though one judge on the bench dissented, the majority opinion leaves Reedy on the hook for paying the judgement.
In 2023, Reedy released a statement on the ongoing litigation after winning a lawsuit brought by Kalamazoo couple Kristyn and Bryant Powers.
"As a small business, we remain deeply concerned with the ease at which attorney’s can file egregiously false claims and fabricate evidence — judges can ignore established law and the parties agreements — and the media can be bought for a sensational story who knowingly deceive the public to help the favored party win their active court cases," Reedy said in the statement.
There are no other pending cases involving Entertainment Managers LLC. Neither parties’ attorneys responded to a request for comment.
