Legal Question in Credit and Debt Law in California

Re: My father hasnt met his end of a promise

I took a moment and looked at the pictures - interesting place. That being said, frankly his financial situation is somewhat irrelevant to the issue. The legal issue is did you have an enforceable contract, and has he breached that agreement by failing to pay you. Oral contracts are not the easiest thing to prove in court - it comes down to your word versus your father's, unless you have witnesses to the agreement. So assuming you can prove that you had a contract in which he agreed to pay you $5,000 if you quit smoking, then the next hurdle is what were the terms of that agreement - how long did you have to stop, was payment to be in one lump-sum, or in installments, have you breached the agreement by smoking again, etc... You can see where I am going with this - there are a lot of unanswered (and potentially un-answerable) questions here. A judge will do his best to interpret what the intent of the parties is, and then rule based on that. The amount in controversy is so small that your best option is to first, send him a letter demanding that he live up to his end of the agreement, and pay you the balance of the money. When or if he fails to do so, go to small claims court, and file a lawsuit against him. That's about all you can do. A judge or commissioner in the small claims court will have to (a) determine if there truly was a contract, (b) have you lived up to your end of the bargain, and (c) he'll have to reasonably interpret from your oral agreement what the terms were, and if your father has breached them. There are no guarantees in litigation, so be prepared to somehow prove (aside from your word on the matter) that there was a contract, and what the terms were. Good luck.

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