Lawsuit Without evidence?

#1

My family owns a store at the mall and we had to make some changes around the store. After 3 weeks, everything is done, except for the DOOR. Well, my bro called this store up (door technicians) to put up a door for us. They told us we have to give them $3k then they will fix it, so we did and now they said we were supposed to take a small screw or some crap out of the door but we didnt so now they have to send 4 not 1 or 2 BUT 4 ppl down and to take it out. They said that we are wasting their time and energy, so now they want another $1k for them to put up the door. My bro and sis went there to talk to the manager, but my sis ended up crying saying how he got in front of her face and start cussing at her and pointing fingers and how he wanted to strangle her. My bro was about to jump in and lay it on his face but my sis push him back.

Now my family is going to the mall to ask the manager of the mall to be our witness since we have a feeling this dirt bag will try to mooch more money off of us because he doesnt give us any paperwork up front instead he wants money first then he will get his guys to put up the door then he gives us the paperwork. What pisses me off is the fact that this dude has the guts to mooch some more after my family paid him $3k for the damn door. We have a feeling hes gonna mooch some more after we give him another $1k since we have no evidence to back it up so we’re gonna get the mall manager to be our witness. My family didnt pay with cash, but with money order or some crap. Can ALL mighty SRK’ers help me out please? I really wanna get back at this dirt bag. :xeye:. I told my sis that she was an easy target, and we really need the door up for us to open our store, so we grinding on our teeth right now… maybe after the door is up n running, ima stop by and give him a nice cup of STFU.

P.S if worst come to worst, my family is willing to go to court if we have any chances of winning!!

#2

Go on Judge Judy

#3

:sorry, double post:

#4

save the jokes for some other threads dude…hard to fuking ask anything on srk these days. thats why i rarely post.

#5

lol 3k for a door

#6

first and foremost, horribly bad move to pay the 3k up front without any contracts in place, but what is done is done. your best bet is to start gathering some evidence, take pictures of the door frame with the supposed screw in it etc. and get it in writing with a blue signature (gotta be blue ink) that they will in fact be putting up the door if you pay the extra 1k now. (i’m assuming that you need to open your shop asap to get revenue in the door).

from there if he doesn’t actually put the door up and comes back for more money you can own him hard in small claims court (it’s just a check the box complaint for that) while you have another vendor get your door up and running. if they actually do put the door up after the extra 1k it’s really up to you if you want to take him to small claims, cause you will need to represent yourself most likely (you would end up paying around 4k in attorneys fee’s for small claims court anyway). you could probably get an award with the first paperwork to get the second 1k back, but again it’s all about how much time and energy your willing to put in for that money back.

but yeah… before you give him ANY more money get the paperwork and double check that everything is correct. (for something like a store door installation if the paperwork is more than about 3-4 pages max i would start to call shenanigans, the longer the document the easier it is for them to hide a “fuck you pay me” clause in it)

#7

its not worth going to court, that much i can tell you right now. Idk what type of door your getting put in the costs 4k but if thats what it actually costs then pay the man.

No offense but not getting paper work signed to begin with has really fucked you over here. If you had gotten a contract signed he would be forced to do the door, but since you didnt you cant really prove anything.

#8

yo thx for all the serious replies. appreciated. its not me that paid and shit. its my sis that owns the store and my bro that calls the fucking store. i just talked to my sis and bro today to see how things went. they told me they called the police to come and be a witness and the police agreed. So the old dirt bag got the 1K. I’ll def drive out to the mall and take pictures of the fucking door every single detail as well as look over the fucking contract since my bro and sis are fucking lazy and act like they are positive everything is handy and dandy. eventhough its not my money im fucking pissed and wish to god that this douchebag gets run over and chokes to death on donkey dicks!!

one more thing, so let say the dirt bag puts up the door and one year later the door is loose… can i take his ass to court or will that kind of shit be in the contract ya know? i dont know why but ima make this shit my problem and help my family out. i hate standing on a hill and not run down to help.

BTW: its a glass door, not your typical hillbilly wood door. and i dont mean like 2 inches glass door, im talking about 5-6 inches.

#9

Update* so my sis n bro pay the dude 1k to put up the door. we even had a cop there to be a witness… we paid the dude 1k then the next day he drove to the store n just put the door there and went home…i asked my bro n sis if they got the paperwork n shit and they said yes. they dont wanna go to court now cuz we have a limit amount of time for the store to reopen so we dont got time to deal with other BS right now…

from what you guys see… do you think we can win if we go to court?

#10

pay for the door, call the better business bureau, and then throw a molotov cocktail through his front window

#11

^ thats what my boss said when i asked him for advice. honestly, we have never have to file a complaint and go to court ever. this would be the first time. are there anything that we will need before filing for complaints guys?:xeye:

#12

not really, bbb complaints are really easy to file (just go to your bbb website) and in my experience have a very good track record of getting action out of people (it does take 3-6 weeks though). as for court… i can’t really say without knowing what all is in the contract, most likely he will have a clause protecting himself if the door comes loose a year from now (he would be stupid not to), however the fact that he didn’t even hang the door this time is prolly enough to get a court order in small claims court (however your rapidly approaching the 5k limit for small claims and limited civil is a much larger pain in the ass)

#13

^true. we even have a white plumber there saying that the old dirtbag is one unethical bussinesman and that hes willing to be our witness if we ever need one. we have other ppl as witnesses but they are all close to us so it wouldnt be believable if we take them with us.we have paid him 1k to put up… we paid and he didnt do shit. we got the paperwork and now we have to run out n find some other business store to put it up for us, which means we gotta spit out some more money. it sucks i tell ya.

it’d be a pain in the ass to complaint while spitting out more money but if i were my bro and sis and got 5k+ to throw out, i wouldnt mind doing it just so the old dirtbag business CLOSES PERMANTELY!!

P.S thx for all the serious replies all. appreciated. :smile:

#14

correct me if i’m wrong, but if u take somebody to court and win, dont they have to pay the legal fees?