Legal Question in Consumer Law in Washington

Re: Eligible for compensation for lack of paid services?

As in many situations, the answer to your question is maybe. Generally you are dealing with a breach of contract issue. You have a contract with your provider to give you a certain service. The first question will be if he actually broke the contract. There is probably some contract that you approved in the process of signing up for the service (such as "click here to accept").

If there is, you will have to read to see exactly what you were supposed to get. If the promises of service are vague enough it may let him out of the contract. Even if there is a firm contract, the next question is whether the provider could reasonably anticipate that you would incur the kind of damages that you did. There is a question of proportion too. If you are paying $100,000 for advertizing and $100 per month for internet service, you may not reasonably expect to hold the provider liable for such extraordinary losses.

By way of example, I did have a case where a printer was held liable to an advertizer for lost sales when the advertizer gave his only copy of a customer list to the printer, but the printer went out of business at the same time and did not print the ads or return the customer list. I didn't think there was any way the advertizer could win but the judge said he was entitled to lost profits.

You just can't guess how your case would turn out. If I was in your situation I would evaluate it as a 50/50 risk, or even 60/40 against you to make sure you understand that you might be throwing good money after bad if you pursue a claim. The loss should at least justify some leverage in discount from the provider. If the cost of advertizing is over $5,000 a lawsuit might be worth it.

Call me if you have more questions. Andrew Hay at 253-272-2400.