Legal Question in Civil Litigation in Kansas
We hired a friend to babysit for 5 days over the memorial holiday! No discussion took place
verbally or in writing regarding the amount she was to be paid! We have always paid what
we thought was fair. She had them all day Sun & Mon, then tues thr thur she took them to
daycare for appx 10 hrs per day and the she went to work! The babysitting was done in my home the entire time (it was 2 minutes from the daycare and would save her money on gas), and we provided all food! I provided her access to my wireless internet while she was there as well. She is not licensed or register or a professional as is the case with the daycare. This was for 2 boys 6 & 11 years of age. Daycare charges us $215.00 per week for both boys. We paid her $200.00 for the week and she left (we had used her a year ago for 5 days and paid 250 because she took off work 1 day to take care of a sick child of her on accord and did not utilize the emergency backup we provided her...she was happy then!). Next day, she is sending us nasty text messages because she was happy with the amount. States now she want at $400 and not a penny less or she will take us to small claims court for $8.50 per hr (much more)! I checked with the NACCRRA (national association of child care resource and referral agencies) of which does an analysis of avg daycare cost for Kansas and it indicates the avg is around $105.00 per week. Doodledays childcare also did an analysis reflecting 15.45 per day. My licensed Daycare stated $200.00 was a perfectly reasonable payment for her services! There has never been an type of prior agreement on what she would be paid at any time. Does she have a legal leg to stand on? My opinion, she is trying to extort money from us.
1 Answer from Attorneys
If she wnat sto sue you for more money, she will have to prove either an agreement to pay more (whih you say does not exist) or the reasonableness of the amount she is demanding. If she persists, you might offer her to pay her some, or tell her that you may countersue for the food and use of internet, etc. If she is yrou friend, and if you may want to have her sit int eh future, you need to assess how hard you want to fight her. You said you paid her more a year ago, becuas she took time off work. It was a year ago, and gas, etc has gone up considerably since then. If she drove your kids to and from daycare, then she spent more in gas.
Hopefully, you can come to a compromise that each side can live with. If not, then you need to prepare for trial. To test your expert, ask your daycare to let the kids stay 24/7 for five days, for just $201 more than you are paying now. If they say that is more thatn fair and agree to do it, then you can use them in court if needed to testify on your behalf. but, If they balk at doing it for $201, then perhaps they were agreeing with you to keep your business. .
Good luck
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