Consignment arrangements, artists being ripped off, etc

[AnotherMoron]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? WV,CA and other assorted states. Real helpful, I know, sorry guys.

There is a business in CA, a one woman show, who sells only specific artisan created products. She contacted myself and several other artists asking to carry their products in her shop on a consignment basis. We all signed contracts. This was over a year ago for most of us, but as soon as 5 months ago for some of us.

Now this woman is refusing to return money or merchandise as stated in the contract we all (including her) signed.

We want to sue her in small claims court if she doesn't pay up and honor her contract. However, none of us live in this woman's state, we live all over the country (and in one case overseas). She has hundreds to thousands of our inventory and owes us all between a few hundred to a grand or so. Her contract states that she will send back any unsold merchandise at her cost via a trackable, insured method. Now she's saying she can't do that, didn't mean to say that in her contract, etc, and is saying she'll send it back via parcel post. That won't work because there's no way we're covered if anything happens to the package and no way to know if she even sent our things at all. This is but one of the contract violations she's guilty of. We've even offered to send her prepaid shipping labels but as she's refusing to communicate with any of us we have no idea how much of our stuff she has to send back. We're beginning to suspect it's somewhere around none.

So we want to sue her, we realize our chances of recovery are slim to none, but we want her to suffer and we're willing to pay for that privilege. How would we go about finding and hiring a lawyer to represent us in small claims? Is that even possible?

Thanks in advance and sorry for the novel.What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)?

[sandyclaus]

Originally Posted by AnotherMoron

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? WV,CA and other assorted states. Real helpful, I know, sorry guys.

There is a business in CA, a one woman show, who sells only specific artisan created products. She contacted myself and several other artists asking to carry their products in her shop on a consignment basis. We all signed contracts. This was over a year ago for most of us, but as soon as 5 months ago for some of us.

Now this woman is refusing to return money or merchandise as stated in the contract we all (including her) signed.

We want to sue her in small claims court if she doesn't pay up and honor her contract. However, none of us live in this woman's state, we live all over the country (and in one case overseas). She has hundreds to thousands of our inventory and owes us all between a few hundred to a grand or so. Her contract states that she will send back any unsold merchandise at her cost via a trackable, insured method. Now she's saying she can't do that, didn't mean to say that in her contract, etc, and is saying she'll send it back via parcel post. That won't work because there's no way we're covered if anything happens to the package and no way to know if she even sent our things at all. This is but one of the contract violations she's guilty of. We've even offered to send her prepaid shipping labels but as she's refusing to communicate with any of us we have no idea how much of our stuff she has to send back. We're beginning to suspect it's somewhere around none.

So we want to sue her, we realize our chances of recovery are slim to none, but we want her to suffer and we're willing to pay for that privilege. How would we go about finding and hiring a lawyer to represent us in small claims? Is that even possible?

Thanks in advance and sorry for the novel.What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)?

The contracts you signed, does it indicate that you would be required to litigate in CA where the woman does business? If so, you need to know that we do not allow attorney representation in our small claims courts here. That means you would need to individually sue her, and represent yourselves at the hearing.
You might instead group together and sue her in civil court, not just for the product value but for breach of contract, fraud, etc. Sounds like you might have enough cause to do so.

Look into hiring a CA attorney who handles business & contract law and consult with them on what your options are. Could be that its not worth even having a cross-country legal battle with this woman.

[AnotherMoron]

I was afraid of that. Thank you for responding, I really appreciate your help.