Sued client and won

Business
1

There are sometimes discussions on this forum about the pros and cons of taking legal action against a party for nonpayment or nonperformance. I recently had the opportunity to do so and wanted to share my experience:

I had a client earlier this year who was a childhood friend of an acquaintance of mine. I wasn’t as careful as I usually am, for several reasons: (1) The acquaintance and his family are honorable people, so I assumed that his childhood friend was too, (2) the client would need ongoing support and maintenance so it would not be in his best interest to screw me over, (3) he was getting a good price for superior workmanship.

I worked on the client’s webhosting account and gave client Super Admin access to the CMS I installed. When site was complete client suddenly started complaining, oh, I thought it would look like this, I want a different this and that, etc. Some of these sudden changes would require illogical backend programming, and some were simple, minor frontend design tweaks. One major thing was that he suddenly wanted an ecommerce system instead of an online catalog.

I had asked him several times in the beginning if he was sure he never wanted to sell the products online (these products are for housing contractors, not retail consumers), and he insisted that he would never do that. My written estimate stated that I was installing and configuring a CMS and a catalog component, which has different features and options than an ecommerce system. (For those who are not familiar, ecommerce has more security, payment gateway modules, stock level controls, shipping modules, tax modules, accounting reports, order lines, order status options, etc.) That night my colleague and I put our heads together to see what we could do about getting these changes implemented as efficiently as possible since he was also demanding the time frame and price not to change significantly.

The next morning when I spoke to him, he said he was cancelling the project because he wanted to go in another direction, and it had been 2.5 weeks already and his site wasn’t “done”. (I had finished it on time and on budget prior to the new changes after delivery.) He told me I wasn’t professional because I hadn’t given him a questionnaire to fill out. I interviewed him personally on the phone for 2 hours so why do I need to give him a questionnaire?!

I told him he still owed me money and I have an employee to pay. He said, “okay, but I want to see a detailed invoice.” I said, no problem and produced one immediately because I use FreshBooks to log my time and tasks. He was taken aback by that, as though he didn’t expect me to have this.

He didn’t pay the bill, and he locked me out of both the webserver and the CMS. He took the site offline (with the CMS’s offline button that displays a “down for maintenance” message).

I could have done without the small amount of money left on his invoice after the deposit ($525), but to cover up his theft he told his friend slanderous lies about me, that I had given him a different site than what he wanted (first he claims he had wanted a brochure site I had showed him from my portfolio, then later he said it was supposed to be an ecommerce site, both of which he had stated at the outset that he did NOT want), that he had given me this $750 deposit and I gave him a site that was 100% unusable, that I expected him to do the design work himself, that he was having someone else make his website and would take down what I did when that was ready. These were all completely untrue and I had hard evidence to prove this, but I kept quiet until the Court date.

He also told his friend I had nothing to sue for because I didn’t have a contract with him, he said if I took legal action against him he would sue me. My acquaintance tried to talk me out of filing a small claims suit against him, saying that lawsuits are often postponed and drag out, and one side never gets 100% unless it’s crystal clear. My colleague was also against me suing because she said I should let it go out of respect for the acquaintance who referred the client to me. If it were just the money I could have let it go, but to screw me over and then fabricate all kinds of lies about me to make it seem like my fault, that was over the line. It feels like such a violation.

I had to sue in his district court which was 70 miles away from me and I don’t have a car. And he had the right to get a postponement as late as the day of the hearing. In fact, when the judge heard our case the first thing he did was ask him if he wanted a postponement in order to get an expert witness to bring in and testify on his behalf. He declined, which was the first smart thing he did since an expert would have told him he was undercharged for work that was such high quality.

I had saved all my evidence for trial so as not to give him an opportunity to adjust his story. I showed the Judge the written estimate I had sent him by email which clearly states how I was building his website, how long it would take and how much it would cost; my detailed invoice; screenshots of the website pages. I explained to the Judge all the interactive functionality of the website (advanced search features of the catalog) as well as the custom scripting.

Bailiff showed Defendant my documents and Judge asked if he had received these documents and if it was true. He acknowledged that it was so. When asked specifically about whether he received my invoice, he answered, “Yes, I told her I would look at it and see if I wanted to pay it.” Defendant attempted to explain his refusal to pay with “After I gave her the intitial deposit I didn’t hear from her for 6 days” (FYI, I told him from the beginning what days I would contact him with a status update and what does this have to do with not paying, job was delivered on time and on budget), and “I clicked the offline button …” (in the admin panel he can take the site offline/online for maintenance by toggling a checkbox, as if voluntarily and temporarily taking the site offline means he doesn’t have to pay).

The Court decided in my favor 100%. Next step is to wait the specified period of time and if payment is not made, file a Sheriff’s Execution to put a lien on his bank account and/or other assets, which can remain in effect for 20 years.

I had not used a formal signed contract because he was a friend of an acquaintance, and now I’m glad I did not because my standard contract language says that any disputes will be decided by an arbitrator. I have since changed the contract to say any disputes would be handled by the court in my jurisdiction. Arbitrators can be a big problem. I used to work in a law firm and there was a case where the arbitrators would not make a decision. And arbitrators almost never rule completely in favor of one side, they give a little to each party.

2

I agree that revenge can bring negative energy but vindication brings justice, fairness and closure.

EXACTLY!!

3

Ok, let’s not get TOO esoteric here but… :slight_smile:

Does vindication really bring justice, fairness, and closure? I think they are separate things.

Say a client screws you over and owes you 10k. If a family member of that client decided to pay his debt and sent you a check, you would have justice but no vindication.

Say that same client screws you and this time you have to take them to court. You win a judgment, and the judge harshly lectures the client on their poor ethic and humiliates them. You are vindicated, and have justice.

But, you can have justice without vindication. And the vindication part doesn’t really help anyone. In fact, you would be spiritually better off if you could actually help the client to become a better person who doesn’t screw vendors rather than simply relishing in their punishment.

Doing things on ‘principle’ is rarely a good idea, since it can be nebulous. Better to choose specific values or ethics to govern your actions, imo.

4

It’s my strong opinion that there is no value in vindication.

You don’t seem to understand the meaning of the word vindicate: “to free from allegation or blame”. He was slandering me in an effort to justify his theft, and I proved in court it was a lie. He told the people who had referred him to me that I gave him a site that was 100% unusable.

It amazes me that there are so many people who are against standing up for one’s rights. How is asserting your right and enforcing a lawful contract through the judicial system equate to an act of revenge?

I did not do this just for myself. I did it for the next person he’s going to try to cheat, so he may think twice before doing it.

5

It’s my strong opinion that there is no value in vindication. None whatsoever. Getting what you are owed is simply part of doing business.

Getting revenge or vindication is simply a distraction, and may serve to bring your negative energy once everything is said it done. There is value to success, to justice, to fairness, and closure. But vindication almost never does anyone any good, and even if it ‘feels good’ for a while, you could have been spending that time doing something more valuable.

Just my 2c :slight_smile:

6

If someone is owed a similar amount but doesn’t have the additional overlay of the unfair comments that the ex-client was making about you and your work, the effort you made might not be worth it.

Yes, that was the only reason to go through all that stress. I have written off more in unpaid bills from other people, but they were not attempting to steal and/or slander.

7

I agree with Sagewing that for larger projects you probably should stick with arbitration. Outside small claims court, litigation is not only expensive, in most jurisdictions it is a very slow road to get your money.

You had an ideal situation because you not only got a judgment, but you got the psychic value of your vindication. For many people, if there is other profitable work to be done, spending the time to prepare and file the complaint, assemble your evidence, travel to the court, spend a day in the courtroom and, after all that, possibly spend more time actually attempting to enforce the judgment, is simply not justified for $525. Even in your case, you have a judgment, not $525 in cash, yet. There may be more to do before you see the money.

If someone is owed a similar amount but doesn’t have the additional overlay of the unfair comments that the ex-client was making about you and your work, the effort you made might not be worth it.

8

You have shown that using small claims court is a good way to enforce your rights with a non-paying client. I congratulate you on your perseverance.

I agree with your thinking that your standard contract should contain a clause that all legal controversies will be ajudicated in the courts of your jurisdiction. Courts will uphold a clause of this nature, and this clause gives you the home court advantage.

My final advice – ALWAYS have your client sign the standard agreement!

9

Going through the court is a painful process for sure.

Not all clients are same. Some are hard ass like it.

10

Excellent summary, donmarvin! :tup:

It’s so good to hear that a dispute like this can work out in favour of the developer/designer, and you’ve demonstrated that documenting a project’s process can save one’s behind in critical situations.

Glad it worked out for you!

11

Yes, I forgot to mention that part, the difficult paperwork and how nervous I was, hoping that he would pay up at the last minute so I wouldn’t have to go there. But afterward it was all worth it, to have defended myself and been vindicated by the Court.

BTW, People’s Court had contacted me and wanted to televise it in front of Judge Marilyn Milian, but that never happened. Not sure why, if it was the other party or if the show didn’t get their paperwork in order.

12

Well, putting an arbitrarion clause in an agreement where the value of the project is small enough to go to small claims court is a bad idea. There is really nothing easier or cheaper than small claims court, which is a joyride compared to arbitration.

However, for a larger project or a larger client (i.e. a 200k job for a large company) you should continue to consider using arbitration as you can really get soaked in the court system and arbitration can help that out. Mediation prior to arbitration is good for even larger projects.

I definitely agree that you want to have your client agree that disputes will be handled in YOUR jurisdiction. Of course, clients will want the reverse but so many small clients don’t read that language at all!