Legal Question in Civil Litigation in California

Re: Breach of contract

You can sue on a contract at the place the contract was entered into. I assume they called your California Office and gave you a work description and the terms were agreed to at that time, so you can argue the contract was made in California. They probably will not show up to Small Claims Court here and if they file an appeal they will lose if they fail to appear in Superior Court. The problem is that you will then have to get a sister state judgment in Florida to apply the California judgment in Florida, which is probably the only place they have assets. If the amount they owe is a few hundred dollars, it is not worth your time and expenses t pursue it. Write them some more letters, see if one of the firms you do business with in Florida will do you the favor of sending a demand letter saying that you will sue in Florida and seek to attach any settlements they might have [if you want to be nasty, have one of your employees who is not doing something then go to a court settlement in which they are appearing and ask for payment when they are with their client and then ask the judge when he comes int the courtroom if you can file a lien on the attorney fees. But be sure they do owe the bill; they will probably argue that it was run up by an attorney who was not really their employee but just using the office space, but since they did not tell you that the attorney appeared to ave authority to bind the law firm. I do not know if calling the State Bar would have any effect. Put in your contracts that California law is primary and the normal contract venues are secondary at your choice; require new firm to pay up front for the first few times they use you. Good luck.

Re: Breach of contract

I have answered several questions similar to this in the past, but I am not sure how Lawguru archives them. The big problem that you have is that in California, the small claims courts do not have jurisdiction over nonresident defendants. This is an exception to California's exceptionally liberal long arm statute.

Specifically, you cannot serve a nonresident defendant with a small claims suit unless they own property in California and the property is the subject of the claim, or were involved in an automobile accident here. (Code of Civ. Proc. sec. 116.340 subds. (e)(f) and (g).)

What you can do is sue as a limited civil action. Many people think that if the amount in controversy is less than 7,500, they must sue in small claims court. This is not true. You may bring an action as a limited civil case, if your claim is any amount from $0 to $25,000.

Of course, you will may be subject to a motion to quash summons for lack of personal jurisdiction, so you will need a good factual basis for bringing the suit here.

I hope that this answers your questions, and helps frame the problem.

Very truly yours,