Cancelled wedding reception due to illness

[ggrat]

On June 30th our daughter was to be married. The day before her wedding her fiance became ill and had to be hospitalized the day of the wedding. We had to cancel the reception at the last minute. We paid the reception hall up front so they had all our money. We have tried on numerous occasions to recoup some of our money but the banquet house says they are entitled to everything we paid. They also said they donated the food to a local shelter but when I called to see what the charitable donation amounted too the shelter says they never received any food. We have all the contracts that we signed and there is no cancellation clause in any of them. We are only trying to recoup some of the money. We understand that the banquet house should be paid for all food, cake, flowers and time that was spent preparing. Our wedding reception wasn't due to begin until 7PM, my husband went there at noon and told them of our situation. We paid $40.50 per person and there was to be 178 people attending. We gave the banquet house over $9,000. I have asked for the gratuity and $15.00 a person be returned to us. I figured that they should keep approximately 2/3 of the money paid for their time and food. My daughters fiance spent 10 days in the hospital and was just given a release yesterday to return to work. This wasn't cancelled on a whim, it was a serious medical condition. Do we have any legal recourse?

 

[loku]

They are entitled to the “benefit of their bargain.” That means that they are entitled to what profit they would have made after all expenses are subtracted, had the contract been performed. It is a matter of accounting. If they did purchase food for the occasion that they could not use commercially, then they should be reimbursed for that as one of the expenses in the formula. However, it does sound like they did not get stuck with the food, since they lied about it to you. If that is the case, you should not have had to pay for it. If you can prove that they were not stuck with the food, you would have a legal right to reimbursement for what they said it cost. The same would be true of any other expense they charged you for that they did not have.