Legal Question in Business Law in Washington

Responsibility of Maintaining confirmed appointment times!

Does a Buisness/corporation have a legal responsibility to keep appointment times with customers? For example:

Service coordinator schedules an appointment for a technician to go to a customers home to fix her alarm system. The appointment was from NOON-4PM technician never showed the entire day, this happens 2 times in a row, customer had to take time off work to be at home. Can the company who failed to maintain appointment time be responsible for liquidation damages?


Asked on 8/27/00, 5:32 am

1 Answer from Attorneys
Bryan Whipple Bryan R. R. Whipple, Attorney at Law

Re: Responsibility of Maintaining confirmed appointment times!

First, liquidated damages isn't the right concept. Liquidated damages refers to a pre-agreed level of monetary compensation as damages for a particular breach, e.g. $1,000 a day for each day contractor is late in completing construction.

In your case, according to pure legal theory you would win if you could prove the oral agreement to show up to do the repairs AND prove that you had actual monetary damages that were foreseeable by the alarm company. 'Forseeable' here is used in a particular legal sense, not necessarily the dictionary definition.

In the real world, the probability of winning and the cost of suit do not make legal action over this affair a good bet. Lawsuits are expensive and your chances, which depend upon making a strong legal and factual case, are not great. In all likelihood the costs would exceed the recovery, if any.

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Answered on 10/02/00, 5:01 pm


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