What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Iowa
First of all, I know this is a long post, but I was unsure what details might make a difference. Thanks in advance for anyone that can lend me some advice.
I recently had a business relationship fall through with someone who I was working with on a project. He decided at the last minute that he was dissatisfied with my work despite me doing exactly what he asked for, and he refused to pay me. I did not have this in writing (stupid mistake). Even though the deal fell through, he still sold the work I did to the customer we were developing for. Since he is selling my work without permission, what are my chances of getting some money out of him in court based on the details of my situation?
DETAILS:
A close friend of mine and I recently did some website development for someone. This person is a self-proclaimed expert in ASP.net web development. I, on the other hand, had no experience developing websites, but I have extensive experience programming and have a bachelor's degree in Computer Engineering as does my friend so am by no means a novice in the technology field. This guy was looking for a couple of people to mentor a little bit, so that he could unload some work on us when he was overloaded. He was well aware of our experience levels and seemed satisfied.
The website that we were developing was for a small business whose owner was well-connected in the chamber of commerce, so he was trying to impress her and cut her a deal. We knew he was charging way less than what the website was worth, but he said he was fine with eating the cost to gain some extra work. With this in mind, and due to our lack of experience in this specific field, we accepted that we would not be making much money on this deal, but would instead be gaining valuable experience.
We were promised "at least $600" for our work. We were told by this "expert" that it was a project that would only take him a "couple of days" to do, so we thought $600 for a couple of newbies was reasonable. We did not get this in writing which is a primary issue here.
As the project moved along, he seemed very happy with our progress. We arranged the graphics work and the mock-up for the website; we did a significant portion of the coding labor including integrating with a credit card merchant; and we entered a large portion of the content into the website. He at one point even announced to us that he was impressed with how fast we were learning. The reason this is relevant is that I told him I was little concerned about the amount of work left to be done based on the upcoming deadline and the specific way he expected the work to be done, and I said that since I was inexperienced that I would be relying on him to let us know if we were falling behind. He said he was unconcerned and worst case, he could finish it in a "couple of days."
Anyways, as the deadline drew closer it became more difficult to arrange meeting with him due to his availability and his apparent lack of concern about the amount of work to be done on the project. When the deadline finally came he began to realize how much work this website really involved. We stayed up almost the entire night working on that project with him (4 AM). I told him that I planned on getting up the next morning to work on the project some more, but needless to say, I overslept and did not have that portion done as early as expected.
He was furious!! I think he had snapped from the pressure of the deadline that he couldn't meet. Right then and there he broke off our agreement and rather than telling us to go to hell, he simply said "you're off the hook," meaning he would finish the website himself. Over the course of the next few weeks (yes weeks, not 2 days), he claimed to have spent a lot of time finishing the website. For the record, we spent at least 150 hours on this project over the course of 8 weeks or so, spending as much time as we could reasonably afford to spend on it. We attributed that to the learning curve, but in retrospect, it was simply a LOT of work.
After a while, he posted the website, and I got to see the finished product. It is almost IDENTICAL! I went through the source code (as much as is available to the public), and I noticed that a large portion of it is my exact code. I think that I can collect enough information from the website, so that I can compare our last copy of the website with his and prove that it is our work.
SUMMARY:
His position is that he doesn't owe us the amount he promised us since he had to do so much additional work without us.
Our position is that he refused to allow us to work on it, effectively breaking our agreement despite the countless hours we spent on the project. Breaking our agreement should have disallowed him the use of our work without adequate compensation which, in my opinion, would be far more than $600. Also, the amount of work to be done was underestimated by him in first place, so a good portion of the fault on that issue lies with him.
He called us up to offer us $200 out of the $1900 he charged for the website. This is ridiculous! We did a lot more than 10% of the work. We told him we would call him back, but we want to be prepared before do.
Do we have a case here? If we can't get him to agree to give us at least $600, am I right in assuming the only other course of action is to make the case that he is stealing our work?
Thanks!
First of all, I know this is a long post, but I was unsure what details might make a difference. Thanks in advance for anyone that can lend me some advice.
I recently had a business relationship fall through with someone who I was working with on a project. He decided at the last minute that he was dissatisfied with my work despite me doing exactly what he asked for, and he refused to pay me. I did not have this in writing (stupid mistake). Even though the deal fell through, he still sold the work I did to the customer we were developing for. Since he is selling my work without permission, what are my chances of getting some money out of him in court based on the details of my situation?
DETAILS:
A close friend of mine and I recently did some website development for someone. This person is a self-proclaimed expert in ASP.net web development. I, on the other hand, had no experience developing websites, but I have extensive experience programming and have a bachelor's degree in Computer Engineering as does my friend so am by no means a novice in the technology field. This guy was looking for a couple of people to mentor a little bit, so that he could unload some work on us when he was overloaded. He was well aware of our experience levels and seemed satisfied.
The website that we were developing was for a small business whose owner was well-connected in the chamber of commerce, so he was trying to impress her and cut her a deal. We knew he was charging way less than what the website was worth, but he said he was fine with eating the cost to gain some extra work. With this in mind, and due to our lack of experience in this specific field, we accepted that we would not be making much money on this deal, but would instead be gaining valuable experience.
We were promised "at least $600" for our work. We were told by this "expert" that it was a project that would only take him a "couple of days" to do, so we thought $600 for a couple of newbies was reasonable. We did not get this in writing which is a primary issue here.
As the project moved along, he seemed very happy with our progress. We arranged the graphics work and the mock-up for the website; we did a significant portion of the coding labor including integrating with a credit card merchant; and we entered a large portion of the content into the website. He at one point even announced to us that he was impressed with how fast we were learning. The reason this is relevant is that I told him I was little concerned about the amount of work left to be done based on the upcoming deadline and the specific way he expected the work to be done, and I said that since I was inexperienced that I would be relying on him to let us know if we were falling behind. He said he was unconcerned and worst case, he could finish it in a "couple of days."
Anyways, as the deadline drew closer it became more difficult to arrange meeting with him due to his availability and his apparent lack of concern about the amount of work to be done on the project. When the deadline finally came he began to realize how much work this website really involved. We stayed up almost the entire night working on that project with him (4 AM). I told him that I planned on getting up the next morning to work on the project some more, but needless to say, I overslept and did not have that portion done as early as expected.
He was furious!! I think he had snapped from the pressure of the deadline that he couldn't meet. Right then and there he broke off our agreement and rather than telling us to go to hell, he simply said "you're off the hook," meaning he would finish the website himself. Over the course of the next few weeks (yes weeks, not 2 days), he claimed to have spent a lot of time finishing the website. For the record, we spent at least 150 hours on this project over the course of 8 weeks or so, spending as much time as we could reasonably afford to spend on it. We attributed that to the learning curve, but in retrospect, it was simply a LOT of work.
After a while, he posted the website, and I got to see the finished product. It is almost IDENTICAL! I went through the source code (as much as is available to the public), and I noticed that a large portion of it is my exact code. I think that I can collect enough information from the website, so that I can compare our last copy of the website with his and prove that it is our work.
SUMMARY:
His position is that he doesn't owe us the amount he promised us since he had to do so much additional work without us.
Our position is that he refused to allow us to work on it, effectively breaking our agreement despite the countless hours we spent on the project. Breaking our agreement should have disallowed him the use of our work without adequate compensation which, in my opinion, would be far more than $600. Also, the amount of work to be done was underestimated by him in first place, so a good portion of the fault on that issue lies with him.
He called us up to offer us $200 out of the $1900 he charged for the website. This is ridiculous! We did a lot more than 10% of the work. We told him we would call him back, but we want to be prepared before do.
Do we have a case here? If we can't get him to agree to give us at least $600, am I right in assuming the only other course of action is to make the case that he is stealing our work?
Thanks!
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