How To Deal With a Breached Contract in Mass.
Monday, May 14, 2012
Leonardo Angiulo, GoLocalWorcester Legal Expert
Written and verbal contracts happen literally every day. It can be as simple as a phone call between a landscaping contractor and a homeowner about a spring clean up, or more complicated like a 15 page commercial lease. Just like contracts disputes, the courts available for civil lawsuits in Massachusetts come in three sizes: small, medium and large.
If you have $7,000.00 or less in damages, your case should be addressed in Small Claims Court. There are some real benefits to a small claims case including a shorter timeline to resolution. In order to file a small claims suit, you can go to the district court where the defendant is located, where the plaintiff is located or where the work took place. When you walk in, you pick up a small claims form, fill it out and describe what happened. Essentially you are explaining why you are owed money, you pay your filing fee and the clerk’s office does the rest. You will receive a hearing date in the mail.
As I mentioned, there are some benefits to Small Claims Court. With a shorter timeline and informal, if any, pretrial discovery you will save on legal fees. The judgment you receive from the court is just as effective and holds the same legal significance as a ruling from any other court. The problem is, of course, that sometimes your damages exceed $7,000.00 and small claims court is not the place for you.
Two other courts that handle contract disputes in Massachusetts are the District Court and the Superior Court. The Massachusetts General Laws define everything less than $25,000.00 to be the jurisdiction of the District Court. Logically, the laws also define everything more than $25,000.00 to be the jurisdiction of the Superior Court. The two courts are governed by the Massachusetts Rules of Civil Procedure and operate very similarly.
The way these cases generally proceed is as follows: first, plaintiff’s counsel files a complaint laying out what the agreement was and what went wrong. Next, defendant’s counsel files an answer within 20 days of their client being served with the complaint. And that’s when the fight starts. For the next six months or few years defense counsel and plaintiff’s counsel will go back and forth to collect discovery, conduct depositions, file motions for summary judgment when appropriate and consider the options for settlement.
No matter how much or how little your attorney charges per hour, litigating a case over a period of years is an expensive proposition. With that in mind, be sure to engage in a cost benefit analysis before beginning a case. This means comparing how much you stand to gain from winning, how much it will cost to get there and identifying the difference between the two as your satisfactory end result. Of course, you should also identify and accept the risks associated with your case.
The cost benefit and risk analyses are important to keep in mind throughout the pretrial process. While discovery is a time consuming process, it is an important one. By gathering evidence, both parties are able to see how the case is developing and how the case may have changed from when it was first filed. The analyses discussed above play an important part when both defendants and plaintiffs consider the future of the suit. Ultimately a settlement decision is made in the context of how strong, or not, a plaintiff’s case will be in front of a judge or jury at trial.
Trial is at the end of the timeline of a civil lawsuit. In a well executed trial, the attorneys use the evidence they gathered during the discovery process to prove and disprove the allegations in the complaint and defenses in the answer. In addition, the witnesses for both sides are allowed to testify and are cross-examined. This permits a judge or jury to hear both sides and decide what really happened. In addition to what happened, they also decide how much the case is worth.
Often times, people ask me whether they can recover their attorney’s fees if they win. And, usually, the answer is no. Our system of justice operates under the theory that everyone pays their own legal fees. Now, that can change in two common scenarios: a) the written contract calls for attorney’s fees as part of damages for breach or b) you make a claim under a statute like Mass. Gen. Laws c. 93A that awards attorneys fees to successful plaintiffs.
While this article can summarize the timeline of a lawsuit for breach of contract, it cannot begin to describe the investment of time and energy the process represents. As a litigator I have interacted with clients at all stages of this process and know that it can be difficult at times. That being said, I believe that knowing where you are going and why you started down the road in the first place can make a real difference.
Leonardo Angiulo is an Attorney with the firm of Glickman, Sugarman, Kneeland & Gribouski in Worcester handling legal matters across the Commonwealth. He can be reached by email at [email protected] or through the firm's website at www.gskandglaw.com
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