Legal Question in Business Law in California

Re: collection

Yes, probably.

Re: collection

This happens quite frequently. There are two legal principles involved.

The first is that a contract can be formed with terms missing, as long as the intention of the parties to form a contract at all is sufficiently clear. When this happens, the law supplies what are called "gap filler" terms. When the missing term is the price or rate, the law says the price will be "a fair price" or "a reasonable price" or "the market rate" or "seller's posted price" or something of that ilk. In other words, if there is some way to get a handle on the price from conditions outside the contract, the court will do so. Can't say whether in your case the price being asked would stand up as a fair "gap filler" or whether the court would say it was excessive, but if there were some basis for the price, it might hold up.

The second principle kicks in when the circumstances show there was never really a contract, perhaps because it was all too vague, or a signature was missing, or something defeats a finding that there was a meeting of the minds. When that happens, and it is rather frequent, there is no contract to enforce and gap fillers are inappropriate, but the court can order a restitutionary payment from the person who got the benefit of the service to the person who performed the service. The amount of the payment will be whatever is proper to prevent the "unjust enrichment" of the beneficiary; in other words, he must pay the other the fair value to him of the services received. This may be less than under the contract-plus-gap filler principle.

Due to these two concepts, it's very unlikely the beneficiary won't have to pay at all, and it's somewhat likely they will have to pay the price demanded if there is any logical basis for it, e.g., the going rate for plumbers in Penngrove is $125 per hour, etc.