Legal Question in Business Law in California

Re: Contract obligation

The answers to your questions depend completely on the terms of the contract. An attorney may be able to help you negotiate a resolution of your problem so you won't have to go to small claims court.

Re: Contract obligation

Question #1: Hard to say for sure, especially without reading the contract or knowing the circumstances causing the first employee to quit, but I'm rather doubtful that you have a strong claim for a refund since I don't see a breach by the agency. It seems to have done or offered to do everything required of it to earn its fee.

Question #2: The proper court would be small claims, where the doillar limit is now $7,500 for most matters. You could also sue in the limited jurisdiction arena of superior court, but there is little reason to want to do this.

Question #3: Unlikely. You would have to plead and prove that the agency promised the employee would be long term; that the employee's failure to be long term was the agency's fault, and not yours or the employee's; and that the damages you're claiming -- a species of "consequential damages" -- were rather specifically foreseeable as a consequence of the agency's fault.

This is the kind of question where the facts not discussed in the question are very likely to control the outcome. Based on a likelihood that the undisclosed facts are not especially favorable to your claims, I predict, without much confidence to be sure, that this is not a winnable case for you.