Subcontract breach of verbal contract

Small Claims- Breach of Verbal Contract

What is the name of your state? Ohio


I own a commercial wallcovering co. that provides and installs wallcovering. A local painting contractor asked us to bid a building addition for wallcovering labor and materials. He was going to bid the project and include our price. He was awarded the contract and told us we were doing the work.
We had a verbal contract and then he hired someone else to do the work because they were cheaper. This was after we ordered materials and scheduled the project. Can I take him to small claims court for profit loss?

Verbal Breach of Contract

Any help would be appreciated!! Thank you.

Twise said:

Can I take him to small claims court for profit loss?

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You can certainly take him to court (after all, that is your right), but you have NO case.
You simply assumed work that didn't happen. And even if you could recover your material costs, you have NO right to anticipated profit. There is no way you could PROVE that you would have made a profit on work that didn't happen.

Learn from this 'life lesson' and ALWAYS get it in writing.... and don't order materials until you have a WRITTEN agreement to do the work.

Breach of contract

Thank you for your response!
This is the first and the last time to not get it in writing, lesson learned.

However, all parties involved( ie: the builder, the material supplier, the owner) were all told by the painting contractor that we were doing the project. We would have never started it without a signed contract but needed to get the materials ordered and the labor scheduled because of the strict time schedule. We passed up another project because we had this scheduled then when this fell through we had a lag time of 2weeks.

With the being said, does that make it a better case for small claims since I had implied consent with 3 witnesses to supoena that will verify that?

Twise said:

does that make it a better case for small claims since I had implied consent with 3 witnesses to supoena that will verify that?

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In my opinion... no. For the reasons previously given.... plus the fact that you haven't shown any DAMAGES!!
Lost potential profit is not damages.