Legal Question in Construction Law in California

Re: Suing a construction partnership that has assets.

Did the bonding company pay you? The construction company likely has liability insurance which may pay a claim based upon negligence. You may be able to get an attorney to take it on a contingency basis. Call me directly.

Re: Suing a construction partnership that has assets.

Bonding companies don't award judgments; only judges award judgments. Bonding companies are like insurance companies, and they make settlements in a non-judicial setting with parties who have claims against their clients. The bonding company should have written you a check if it indeed agreed with your claim against its client. Therefore, whether it has "weight in law" or not is immaterial.

I have a hunch that what happened here is that the bonding company sent an adjuster or independent appraiser of some kind to visit with you on a sort of fact-finding mission, and made a report favorable to your claims, but the bonding company, which has the money and the power to write you a check, rejected the fact-finder's report or is still sitting on it.

If I'm right, the report of the investigator or whatever it is might be admissible evidence if you have to sue the contractor and/or the bonding company.

Lawsuits are expensive, and there are no guarantees of success, but some suits are close to a slam dunk and others are true long shots. Lawyers with some experience are able to tell one from the other with a fairly high but not perfect degree of accuracy. Thus, you may be able to find a lawyer who would take your case on a cintingency or partial contingency basis - no recovery, no fee; or no recovery, reduced fee.

My final comment is about damages for pain. Damages for pain from physical injury are medium-difficult to prove and get awarded; damages for mental anguish are one or two categories more difficult to prove and obtain a monetary judgment. If you claim is mainly based on mental anguish rather than breach of contract or negligence or another well-respected, hard-dollar concept, you will need a very good lawyer and one with experience in that particular conceptual area.