My rights as a film-maker

U

uzland

Member
I want peoples' opinion on the following situation and what I should do about it.

I made a contract with a bride to film her wedding. Then in 5 days she says she wants to call off the contract. No reason given. However I had turned down another offer for that day in order to shoot her wedding. She had already sent me a deposit of 400 dollars. Now the contract says that if she cancels it 30 days prior to the wedding, I get to keep the deposit. Her e-mail about cancellation came in 3 weeks prior to the wedding. I explained to her that I get to keep the deposit as a compensation because I had turned down another job for that day. She wouldn't agree. Then I said I would return 150 dollars as sign of good will. She went silent. Then I find out that she put a hold on the check and it got bounced costing me a bank fee of 12 dollars.

What should I do? Do I have any rights in this situation, any enforcement mechanism? Thanks.
 
Well, if you have a contract, and the contract says "no refunds within 30 days" etc., and you acted within the bounds of the contract, then yeah, you've got rights there. As to whether it's worth pursuing, that's a different matter. Depends on how you mean pursuing it though. If you could talk a lawyer friend into sending her a letter on his official letterhead that says stuff like "per the contract" and "you stopped payment on a legitimate check, which amounts to the same thing as writing an illegal bad check" or whatever other scary terms he might come up with, well, that can be quite effective.

Other than that, yeah, small claims court is it. Or Judge Judy.
 
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