Gary Collins and Rosa Collins v. Lynn Roland Enterprises, LLC

Let’s cut right to the chase: a couple in Washington State just got slapped with a $58,461 lien on a house they’re building in Oklahoma—over footings. Not the roof, not the plumbing, not even the walls. Footings. As in, the concrete slabs that go underground before you even start building the house. And now, thanks to a subcontractor who says he’s owed every penny despite not finishing the job, this has escalated into a full-blown legal showdown. Welcome to Crazy Civil Court, where dreams of a new home collide with the fine print of construction law—and someone’s footing (pun absolutely intended) is about to get seriously tested.

Meet Gary and Rosa Collins. They’re not your average Oklahoma homeowners—they live in Washington, which already adds a layer of “I did not sign up for this nonsense” energy to the whole situation. But like many people chasing a slower pace of life, they decided to build a custom home on a piece of land in Broken Arrow, a fast-growing suburb south of Tulsa. The property? A quiet, sprawling lot at 18500 East 141st Street South, where they planned to settle into their dream retirement build. To make it happen, they hired a general contractor called Bedrock Construction, doing business as Austin Lee Company. Standard move—hire a pro to manage the chaos of building a house. But as we all know, when you hire a general contractor, you’re really just outsourcing the headache, not eliminating it. Enter Lynn Roland Enterprises, LLC—a Tulsa-based concrete subcontractor brought in by Bedrock to do one very specific thing: pour the footings.

Now, for those of you who haven’t spent your weekends watching concrete dry (and honestly, who has?), footings are the foundation of the foundation. They’re the first physical thing that touches the ground when you’re building a house, designed to distribute the weight and keep everything level. There are two kinds here: perimeter footings, which go around the edge of the house, and interior footings, which support load-bearing walls inside. There was also a separate pool house in the plans, which required its own set of footings. Lynn Roland’s contract covered all of it. But here’s where things go sideways: in July 2024, Lynn Roland showed up, poured the perimeter footings for the main house, and then… stopped. No interior footings. No pool house footings. Just walked off the job, like a chef who sears the steak and then leaves the kitchen before plating it.

Despite not finishing the work, Lynn Roland sent Bedrock an invoice for $53,147—full price for a job only partially done. Bedrock, not exactly thrilled, offered to pay less—specifically, the full amount minus what it would cost to hire someone else to finish the unfinished footings. Reasonable? Absolutely. But Lynn Roland wasn’t having it. They wanted the full invoice, no discounts, no negotiations. When Bedrock refused to pay the full amount, Lynn Roland pulled the nuclear option in contractor disputes: they filed a mechanic’s lien—a legal claim against the property itself—for $58,461.70. That’s right: they didn’t sue Bedrock. They went straight for the house, attaching a debt to the Collins’ property as if they’d built the whole damn thing. And here’s the kicker—the lien was filed in September 2024, and just weeks later, their lawyer sent a five-day ultimatum threatening to sue to foreclose on the lien if payment wasn’t made. That’s not a negotiation. That’s a home invasion… legally.

So why are we in court? Because mechanic’s liens are powerful—scarily powerful. In Oklahoma, like many states, a subcontractor can place a lien on a property even if they were hired by the general contractor, not the homeowner. It’s a protection meant to ensure workers get paid, but it can be abused when someone files an inflated or unjustified claim. The Collins aren’t arguing that Lynn Roland did no work—they’re not monsters. They acknowledge the perimeter footings were poured. But they’re saying the lien amount is way off. Lynn Roland is claiming nearly $59,000 for a job they didn’t finish, and the Collins want the court to step in and say: “Nope. That’s not how this works.” Their lawsuit is asking for a formal adjudication of the lien—basically, a judicial reality check. They want the court to declare the lien invalid because it’s overstated, and to determine what, if anything, Lynn Roland is actually owed. They’re also asking to be reimbursed for their attorney’s fees, which, given they’ve hired a big Tulsa law firm (Doerner, Saunders, Daniel & Anderson—yes, that’s a real name, no, we didn’t make it up), are probably already piling up faster than wet concrete.

Now, let’s talk about that number: $58,461.70. Is that a lot for footing work? Well, let’s do the math. We don’t have the full contract, but pouring footings—especially on a custom home with a pool house—can be labor-intensive. But here’s the thing: Lynn Roland didn’t pour all the footings. They did the perimeter, which is significant, but skipped the interior and the pool house. So they’re billing for 100% of the work while delivering, at best, 60-70%. And the lien amount is actually higher than the original invoice—$58k vs. $53k. Where’d the extra $5,000 come from? Interest? Fees? Anger? The filing doesn’t say, but it’s raising eyebrows. For context, $58k could buy you a brand-new midsize SUV or cover a year of private school tuition. It’s not pocket change. But is it worth threatening to foreclose on a house over? That’s like your pizza delivery guy putting a lien on your house because you stiffed him on a $20 tip.

Our take? The most absurd part isn’t even the lien—it’s the timing and the target. Lynn Roland didn’t sue Bedrock, the company that actually hired and refused to pay them. They went after the homeowners, who had nothing to do with the payment dispute. That’s like getting into a fight with Uber Eats and then showing up at the customer’s door with a lawyer instead of the food. The mechanic’s lien law exists to protect workers from being stiffed, but it wasn’t meant to be a weapon for subcontractors to strong-arm homeowners who aren’t even in their chain of command. Gary and Rosa Collins are just trying to build a house. They didn’t hire Lynn Roland directly. They didn’t sign the contract. They didn’t approve the invoice. And yet, their property is now legally tainted by a debt they didn’t create. If the court lets this lien stand as-is, it sets a terrifying precedent: any subcontractor, no matter how small the job or how incomplete the work, can hold a family’s home hostage over a billing dispute. We’re not rooting for anyone to get rich here—but we are rooting for common sense. And maybe, just maybe, for someone to remind the construction world that in Oklahoma, as everywhere else, you don’t get paid for work you didn’t finish. Even if you do have a really good concrete truck.