Legal Question in Business Law in California

I have a Tech Company based in Los Angeles, CA.

We service Legal and Entertainment Companies in Los Angeles.

We are a small full service firm.

My problem is that an acquaintance of mine, whom I work with as one of the heads of a Record Label, is the co-head manager of a small business he has worked at for awhile. He asked me to come in and take a look at the company's network as they were having email problems. I usually will refuse to work on friends or acquaintance's companies, etc but in the past before I knew him--I would send my Tech's to them for small problems like Network Printer not scanning to file, etc. They always paid on time and I have never had any issues with them.

I went out to the company site and found that their entire email system was in disarray, found out they hired an IT Guy for $400 bucks to setup a Windows Server, emails, workstations--the whole nine yards for 6-7 computers. That $400 piece of information kinda bothered me but I didn't hesitate as we have had bills hovering around that amount and they always paid on time.

Long story short...we fixed all their issues, got them to upgrade some software and components, etc...all was good for a week.

PROBLEM beings the next Monday when they email us stating they cannot login to their workstation accounts. I personally go up there, being someone I know, and find that their Server Motherboard had fried! Bad bad situation.

This is the worst kind of situation you can find yourself in. We looked at options of buying a new server or just buying a new motherboard--I said do a new motherboard because you will have to pay more for a new server and new licenses, etc.

Motherboard was ordered and was set to arrive for next day arrival. I did something VERY stupid...I felt very bad for them and wasn't thinking and didn't have them sign one of our standard onsite repair forms. I just went right to work. The new motherboard came in--it was defective. I setup my personal laptop with a virtual server to get them setup because they were losing some serious business...problem is is that I had to install the Server on the Virtual Machine and rebuild their business on my laptop. This is usually something that can take a weekend and up to a week to complete....we did it in a day and LATE night. They were up and running. He told me that whatever it takes, he doesn't care how many guys I have to bring in, how many hours I have to put in....they needed up as fast as humanely possible.

I am gonna nutshell this for you and if you have questions about certain things...let me know.

I brought in 3 extra guys besides myself...we spent over 70 combined in labor to get this company back up to life. I lost 2 potential clients because I was not available.

We have done alot of work for them. They know what we charge per hour, they were there they whole time working with us to help us rebuild this company from the dead and they were commenting how they can't imagine what the bill would come out to. We finished they job to the "t" and they were back up 100%.

I told them that I would give them a GREAT deal because I felt bad for them after having a clean up round the 2 weeks before. After the billing...before the discount...the bill came to a staggering 16k! I cut it down to 7k.

Considering the usual billing that takes place when doing major Server Migrations and other major work....they got a great deal. We aren't a bunch of Tech's who know how to do stuff....all my guys are certified and were brought in for a reason.

They are now demanding that no more than 2 hours per computer should have been spent...I explained to them the gravity of the situation they were in and any other Tech company on the fly, late late nights and early mornings would have billed them the full bill with no hesitation. They blamed us in scathing emails for their business loss. I explained that this is a situation where business loss is highly likely to occur...

They are now offering only $1,750.00.

I have over 3,500k in labor that i paid my guys.

I have cut ties and want to sue the pants off of them. I have talked to a lawyer buddy of mine and he says I should go after the full 16k considering the scathing and disrespectful nature they are directing at us.

I don't like to get tangled with lawsuits but this is something that I am cornered and after detailed logs that I produced for them...they still maintain they should have only been down for about a day. We are not their regular service providers. They don't have one at all until they have all kinds of issues.

AGAIN, the big problem is I was being a concerned guy and trusted that there would be no issues with negotiating a deal on the bill. But they are low-balling me with the absolute disrespect.

I want to sue but I am worried that the lack of a contract will screw me here.

My buddy says they are witnesses to the amount of hours we worked and we aren't usually there so there is an implied agreement considering most people don't work for free and we are not a regular IT maintainer.

What should I do? I am gonna sue but I want to walk into this comfortably...with opinions from a community such as yourselves. I am also not going to use any of our many Legal clients because that would be a bad impression I feel. Want to keep them clean away from these types of issues.

Thoughts?

Can I go for full 16k? I don't really want that honestly...I just want them to pay their bill that I discounted and we can be on our way....

what are my options?

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