Sueing contractors for work not done

[entrochan.livejournal.com]

Last July, I gave a contractor a $4500 downpayment to re-do my front porch. He has yet to do the work, and attempts to get my money back have been futile. We went through a few months where he told me he would pay me back in installments (he'd had some money stolen from him by his kid, and being accomodating seemed like the better way to go), but I got a grand total of $200 this way. Then another few weeks of him promising to do the work. Nothing.

So it is time to take him to court. Does anyone know how to go about doing this? It's more than the small claims amount of $2000. It seems a bit straightforward to get a "real" lawyer involved. I've poked around on the somerville web sites and can't seem to find any real information.

Comments

[rifmeister.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, $4500 is not a big enough amount of money to be worth a "real" lawsuit, in my understanding. I would talk to a lawyer to make sure, but my guess is that the best you will be able to do is take him to small claims court for $2000 and eat the rest. I'm sorry this happened to you. (We had a similar situation once when a contractor did several thousand dollars of damage to our home and claimed it wasn't his fault. We basically threatened to take him to small claims court, and ended up settling for slightly less than $2000 to avoid actually having to go to court.)

[unferth.livejournal.com]

The Consumer Protection Act allows for double or triple damages if the unfair or deceptive practice was willful or malicious, and that multiplier is assigned after the small claims court maximum, so it a situation like this it would be possible to sue for $2000, get treble damages and end up recovering the whole initial investment plus a bit more. But that's dependent on the small claims court awarding treble damages, which is not automatic:

"In all other cases, if the court finds for the petitioner, recovery shall be in the amount of actual damages or twenty-five dollars, whichever is greater; or up to three but not less than two times such amount if the court finds that the use or employment of the act or practice was a willful or knowing violation of said section two or that the refusal to grant relief upon demand was made in bad faith with knowledge or reason to know that the act or practice complained of violated said section two."

http://www.mass.gov/legis/laws/mgl/93a-9.htm

It still might be wiser to file suit in small claims court for the reduced amount, hoping for triple damages - but you'd probably want to consult with a lawyer beforehand to get a judgement on how likely you are to get double or triple damages. Not that you can't also get triple damages on the whole amount if you win in the full court, but of course that's a more involved process than small claims court.