Legal Question in Workers Comp in California

I am a music and audio professional and I was contracted by a school franchise that my girlfriend worked for to edit a large amount of audio files for their school plays in the spring. Through several emails that my girlfriend sent, it was confirmed that my payment for the gig would be $3000. This was confirmed explicitly by email AND AGAIN in a meeting about the subject that my girlfriend was in attendance at (she was the director of one of the schools). I invoiced them for the work about a month ago for 3000, like we had discussed, but never got a reply back. Since then my girlfriend has quit the job, and I haven't received payment yet. After sending an email to them again today with another invoice, they responded to her (instead of me) insisting that they would only pay HALF of the fee. The reasons for this were all relating to my girlfriends performance, and nothing to do with my own work on the project. My girlfriend followed up insisting that regardless of their opinion of her work, Brian (that's me) did 100% of the work that he was asked, and never received ANY complaints about his performance or product that he delivered. Though there is no explicit written and signed contract, do I still have a case to pursue this payment in small claims?


Asked on 7/06/16, 2:09 pm

2 Answers from Attorneys
David Lupoff Law Offices of David B. Lupoff

This all comes down to evidence. You have your girlfriend as a witness, the emails, and finally, your performance. While I would never guarantee results, I do believe that you have a pretty decent shot in small claims court.

Tip: in many small claim court settings, you might have an opportunity to mediate the case. In your case, they already offered you 1/2 of the agreed amount. That means even though you are suing the school for the entire amount, the true amount in dispute is $1,500.00. If you do try to mediate the case before going before the judge, try to get them to stipulate that they already offered you 1/2, and that you're really mediating the second half. This should help protect you from "meeting in the middle" with the entire amount, rather than the disputed amount.

Good luck

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Answered on 7/06/16, 7:12 pm
Nancy Wallace Nancy Wallace Atty at Law

When I sat as a small claims judge, I would award claims like this where there was a CLEAR SIGNED writing about an agreement for a certain sum by the person in authority on the side refusing to pay. You've got nothing to lose, you should have filed already and get all of your exhibits organized by date and tabbed for the judge.

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Answered on 7/13/16, 5:18 pm


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