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

[ron_newman]

Would publicly shaming him (by posting his name, address, phone number, etc.) be enough to motivate him to return your money? That would cost a lot less than suing....

[marphod.livejournal.com]

And is a REALLY bad idea, as it is, without proving your case first, potentially libel, slander or defemation of character (and while the truth is protection against the first 2, it is NOT against the second).

[agnosticoracle.livejournal.com]

The best first step is to talk to a lawyer. Quite possible all said lawyer will do is write him an official certified letter demanding the money back or the work be done. Quite possibly this will scare the guy into doing the work or writing you a check.

If you don't have a lawyer I can recommend mine. I'm not sure if he handles these kinds of cases, I've just used him for my house purchase and setting up my corporation.

Michael Knight (lawyer) 781.444.9955

[entrochan.livejournal.com]

Probably not. He's a small-time guy. Although perhaps if enough people actually cared to set up a brigade of people going over to his house every day, that could potentially work.

Yeah, I would really rather there were another solution.

[larksdream]

I'm not even sure it's such a good idea to have this guy do the work at this point. If he's doing a slapdash job just to get you off his back, well... let's say I'd worry when it's something structural like a porch. Best to tell him he's in breach of contract and get the money back, I think.

[entrochan.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'd feel pretty uncomfortable with him doing the work at this point.

[unferth.livejournal.com]

I am not a lawyer, but it sounds to me like you'd ultimately want to file suit under MGL chapter 93A, the Consumer Protection Act. That's assuming that there are no good non-court related options left to exhaust, of course. Apparently the Attorney General runs a mediation service for consumer-protection disputes (http://www.ago.state.ma.us/sp.cfm?pageid=1134) but I don't think they have the same ability to compel payment that the courts do.

http://www.lawlib.state.ma.us/consumer.html has a bunch of good links, including http://www.neighborhoodlaw.org/page/56503&cat_id=69 - "Unfair and Deceptive Trade Practices: What are Your Rights?"

There's a brief rundown of the law and some potentially-helpful phone numbers at:
http://www.massbar.org/lawhelp/legal_info/index.php?sw=3127&full_id=226

http://www.lawlib.state.ma.us/forms.html#consumer gives an example of a thirty day demand letter, which is a necessary step before making a claim under chapter 93A.

I don't know exactly how to find out which court you'd make your claim in or what the paperwork for that is. My gut feeling is that any time you're going to "real" court rather than small claims court it's best to have a lawyer involved, but obviously people can and do represent themselves. Legal fees are recoverable as part of the lawsuit if you win, for what that's worth.

[pierceheart.livejournal.com]

Family Law Associates (Dellagrotte and Marciello)
on broadway in east somerville.

I trust them, some of my friends trust them.

[push-stars.livejournal.com]

Whether you sue him or not you might want to consider filing out a report at the BBB. In fact, I would be surprised if he does not have a history there already. Unless he changes his company name periodiclly. http://complaint.bbb.org/

[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.

Office of the Attorney General

[ert.livejournal.com]

Contact (http://www.ago.state.ma.us/sp.cfm?pageid=1135) the Consumer Complaint Division (http://www.ago.state.ma.us/sp.cfm?pageid=967) of the Massachusetts Office of the Attorney General (http://www.ago.state.ma.us/). They'll register your complaint, give you good pointers about your options and next move, and provide free mediation services if you decide to go that route.

If you end up going for a lawyer, I can recommend Susan Goldstein (http://www.pressmankruskal.com/pressmankruskal.bios.htm) at Pressman & Kruskal (http://www.pressmankruskal.com/) in Central Square.

another lawyer recommendation

[cfox.livejournal.com]

Jeffrey Feuer http://goldsteinfeuer.lawoffice.com/ does consumer protection cases (my case was tenant-landlord, but of a similar financial magnitude). I was not only happy with the outcome, but he itemized his bill carefully so that I felt he'd made good use of the time I was paying for.

Unless your time is really cheap to you, I recommend the real-lawyer route. Many of these things are all about convincing the other party that it's cheaper to pay up than to go to court, and having someone else cope with the unpleasantness can buy a lot of peace of mind.

[reed-davis.livejournal.com]

Sorry to hear about your situation.
I know that The City of Cambridge has a Consumer Commission. I would suggest calling City Hall to see if such a department exists in the City of Somerville. Good luck.

Re: Office of the Attorney General

[mistergoat.livejournal.com]

I agree that the AG's office is a good place to go.

[mistergoat.livejournal.com]

From what I've heard from a lawyer who works on wage and hour law (people not being paid), a letter from a lawyer making a demand can go a long way. Obviously, it's a different body of law, but both often involve small business people who are doing something underhanded.