One Small Claims Success at a Time...

Last Tuesday was going to be my day in court. I had waited more than three months, but had still not been paid for the time and work I put in producing "Permanent Detour". The girl who had hired me was missing. She wouldn't return calls, or texts, or emails, or Facebook messages, and I was feeling royally screwed.

I left for Europe and when I returned to Nashville, there was a FedEx letter waiting for me. It had come from Los Angeles. Some producer for the Judge Joe Brown show had seen my court filing and evidently they thought that this case would make for some great, trashy, television. I called the number and left a message with the producers telling them that I would be happy to make my case in front of Judge Joe Brown and the American people. (I also relished the idea of a free trip to LA to see my friends and the sunshine.)

Monday morning, the day before the court date. As I stepped out of my morning shower, I was running over the details of the case in my mind. Trying to piece together the chronology of when I was first approached about producing, how we designed the budget, what was said, what was emailed, etc. As I toweled off, I noticed that I had a missed call and voicemail on my cellphone. After pulling on some jeans and a t-shirt, I dialed my voicemail and hear a long lost voice. The girl who I was suing had, in the 11th hour, decided to call me.

"Hi Ben. It's me. Listen, I'm really sorry... about everything. I have a check for you and you can come pick it up. That's *sob* all that I *sob sob* wanted to *sob* say. So... if you call me *sob* back, you can come by and get your *sob* check."

I called her back, informed her that she now owed me not only for the production fee, but also for my court filing costs. Provided that she agreed to pay me that I would be happy to collect my money and drop the case. Two hours later, I picked up my check, went straight to the bank to deposit it and then went to the courthouse and dropped the charges.

So I got what I wanted, more or less. It would have been much better to have had all this handled without losing a friend, without having to witness the incredible flaky-ness that this girl exhibited, and without having had to wait for 3 plus months to get it all handled. So next time I produce something, even if it's for a friend, even if it's for a family member, there's gonna be a contract that gets signed and the customer won't get a copy of any of the music until I get paid.

Lesson learned.