Legal Question in Civil Litigation in California
I loaned my brother-in-law $2,000 and he refuses to pay, although he agreed to pay when I loaned it to him. There was no written agreement, although there are witnesses to the fact that I LOANED him $2,000. Is this a good case for small claims court? And if so, what are my chances of winning if there was nothing in writing but two people who can verbally vouch (or write a letter vouching) to the fact that it was a loan for $2,000 that was agreed upon verbally to be repaid?
3 Answers from Attorneys
If you can get him to admit the debt in an email, or if you can subpoena a witness to show up in court (even friendly witnesses sometimes flake out) you have an excellent chance of prevailing in small claims court.
The only issue might be a statute of limitation issue if the loan was supposed to be paid back more than two years ago. If not, bring your evidence of payment to court with you, as well as witnesses who saw you give the money to him and heard your brother-in-law say that he would pay it back shortly. Also, be prepared for him to argue it was a gift out of love for your sister, etc.
Oral contracts are usually enforceable. They are generally harder to prove than written contracts, but if you can bring your eyewitnesses to court you will have a pretty good chance -- assuming that your time hasn't run out, that you can properly serve your brother-in-law and that you face no other similarly serious obstacles.
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