Angry ex-employees are engaged in a class-action lawsuit against former Oklahoma businessman Todd Fox, who has been linked to a start-up retailer in Aspen known as Toddy’s.

Fox, who ran the auto-body repair empire FOX Collision, closed his shops unexpectedly last month, reportedly leaving hundreds of people out of work and without health insurance.

A lawsuit recently was filed against Fox in U.S. District Court in Oklahoma by the law firm of Armstrong & Lowe. The suit seeks monetary damages and attorneys’ fees on behalf of more than 100 employees in the Tulsa area alone. Court documents claim the Tulsa-area employees combined to lose more than $10,000 in wages.

In addition, according to a secretary at Armstrong & Lowe, lawyers from Kansas have called to say that Kansans who worked for FOX Collision are working on their own class-action suit. Fox also had businesses in Arkansas and Missouri.

In Aspen, the owner of Toddy’s, a leather goods shop on the Hyman Avenue pedestrian mall, recently told The Aspen Times that while Fox is employed by Toddy’s as a consultant, he is not a stockholder or partner in the business.

The owner, Ron Fesler, admitted when asked that he is Fox’s cousin, and has said that the two were planning to open up a store such as Toddy’s. But when Fox got into financial trouble with the body-shops empire, Fesler said, Fox had to back away from the Toddy’s concept.

As for stories of former employees left in fiscal dire straits, Fesler has maintained “they’re not true.
 

Numerous former FOX Collision employees, however, have contacted The Aspen Times to say that there were rumors at the FOX outlets for some time that Fox was planning to open an Aspen shop of some sort, and that he provided the money to finance the new enterprise.

Some of those former workers also have told of being owed up to $4,000 in back pay.