Legal Question in Employment Law in Washington

Re: Contract Obligations

Certainly. You can sue them.

How much money is owed to you? You need to decide whether or not it's worth it. Suing is always a risk - you may not win.

If you sue, you'd also request interest, costs, and attorney fees.

Merry Kogut

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Re: Contract Obligations

First question that must be answered is, what laws apply to this contract? If you have a written contract (and I'm assuming you do), the contract may very well spell out in a "choice of law" provision what laws apply. You must then find an attorney in that jurisdiction to review the contract with you, and then apply the laws of that jurisdiction to your case.

If the contract does not specify choice of law, or if there is no written contract, then we would look to the circumstances of signing the contract. Who contacted whom? Where were you when you signed the contract or verbally agreed to the deal?

It is unclear from your question whether you would be an employee or an independent contractor. How collection efforts would proceed would depend a little on that, but either way, if the company really has offices in both the US and Australia (and they are real offices, not just an address), collection should be possible no matter what law applies under these facts.

I encourage you to find an attorney locally to review your contract with you and determine where to commence collection efforts and legal action. Just what laws apply and how to begin will depend on that. (If choice of law in the contract is in neither the US nor Australia, it is possible, depending on the circumstances of your case, to get around that.)

No matter which jurisdiction's laws apply, I'm pretty sure you will find that it is not legal to use someone's services for six months without paying them, and that remedies exist for breach of contract, even many oral contracts. You will also find, however, that statutes of limitations apply, and these vary from place to place, and if almost a year has passed already, you might want to get moving on this right now. Good luck!