Legal Question in Business Law in Arizona

For my event coordinating Company I had a Contract that was signed by the Person in Charge at the time who was Authorized to sign the contract (To do a service for the Company)... The Parameters of the contract were hand written in by him, and signed by him and I which he also made a photo copy of....

He than wanted me to go home and type out the agreement and email it to him where he would sign it again....

I did this, and than he wrote me back 5 days later stating he couldn't sign the contract because he had been let go from the job.... At the time I wasn't paying attention and said okay, but than after thinking about it I realized I still had a signed contract....

So the Company decided a couple days before they didn't want to honor the contract and didn't want to use me...

the Company is saying that because the email correspondence states that he couldn't sign the contract that means there was no valid contract....

I'm just wondering if the Contract would in fact still be valid because it was signed at the time we met.... I was only going home to type everything up so it wasn't so messy, but the Contract wasn't changing AT ALL.....

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Asked on 5/26/10, 9:05 pm

2 Answers from Attorneys
Donald W. Hudspeth The Law Offices of Donald W. Hudspeth, P.C.

You have counter arguments:

1. The contract was final on all points and signed by a person with authority to do so at the time. Thus, contract.

2. The hadwritten agreement was not intended as the final agreement because it contemplated another draft (otherwise he would not be taking it home to type). Thus, no contract.

3. You did not intend the re-type to keep agreement in limbo: the retype ws for convenience not legal reasons.

However, this argument turns out I would pursue the claim because you have a good faith claim and law is a game of levers, not final outcomes. You should be able to get some money on the contract. Then the question is whether the amount in question is worth the legal fees to pursue.

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Answered on 5/27/10, 10:04 am
Donald Scher Donald T. Scher & Associates, P.C.

It is not clear that you have an enforceable contract, but it does seem clear that if the person had not been fired, you would have had the job. That being said, the real question is, how much have you been damaged? If you cannot show that you lost another job because you were committed to this event, I think it would be difficult for you to show that you were damaged. You didn't do any work, or did you? If you did work, then you should be compensated for that work.

I seriously doubt that you could afford to pay a legal fee to pursue this claim and have it work out in your favor.

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Answered on 5/27/10, 11:14 am


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