Legal Question in Credit and Debt Law in New York
Partial payment for services
About 10 months ago a person representing a Florida firm hired me (I'm from New York) to work on their web site. For nine months they were happy with my work and paid my bills without problems. Recently however, because the person that hired me found inexpensive and more experienced help (because of the 9/11 economic downturn) he decided to start paying short on my invoices (the last two invoices). In the mean time he not only used my work on their web site, but he also used some of my ideas with the new developers. When I inquired about this, he basically told me to take-it-or-leave-it and to sue him if I wanted to. I�m talking about a total of $450.00 and he knows that I cannot hire an attorney to handle this. I think he has done this before and he knows that he can get away with it. Is there anything I can do?
2 Answers from Attorneys
Re: Partial payment for services
The easy answer is that you can take the person to small claims court, but you may have several problems. There are certain limitations on the reach of the court. You can call the local clerk of the court and ask for some assistance.
There may also be a claim for misappropriation of intellectual property. It depends upon the nature of the work that you did, whether you have a written contract, and, if so, the terms and conditions of the agreement. If you can assert some type of claim for breach of copyright, you will obviously have more influence over the outcome. However, based upon the information that you have presented, I can not tell if you do have this type of claim.
Re: Partial payment for services
I suggest that you file a claim with the small claims court.
However, in New York you can only file a small claims action in a county where the defendant resides. The defendant here is from Florida.
I suggest that you contact the small claims court in Florida and have them forward the form. On the date of the action you will have to appear in Florida to prove that you are entitled to the additional $450.00.
Mike.
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