Who has the burden of proof?

[anabanana]

What is the name of your state? FL

Generally speaking, in a dispute over billing for professional services, who has the burden of proof that services were rendered? This wacky chick was the "parenting coordinator" during a custody dispute and her billings just say "phone call, parent" "paperwork" "phone call, parent" "phone call, parent" "paperwork," with various charges and no detail. I asked for details: when was the call, to which parent, for what purpose? There are tons of them. I don't have any idea what these charges are for. and she SAYS she has case notes that will back up the charges, but I asked for verification for MONTHS and she refused to provide any additional info and just kept piling on the charges. I had to harangue and harangue her into suing ME because I had no cause of action against her, since supposedly I am the one who owes her.

Now I've received the documents she'll be presenting in court and there's nothing I haven't seen before. No detail. I figure this is pretty much like a mechanic giving me a bill that just lists "part" "part" "part" "repair" "repair" "diagnosis" "repair." It's ridiculous. Except in her case, there's nothing tangible, so it's herr word against mine, so WHO HAS THE BURDEN? This is nuts.

 

[I AM ALWAYS LIABLE]

My response:

She does.

You'll win in court.

IAAL

 

[anabanana]

AWESOME! Is that a common sense principle of law (seems like it oughta be) or is it in some statute? I've been looking for some kind of law and I can't find one that seems to apply. There's very detailed law about how nursing homes are supposed to itemized their bills, but nothing for counselors or other professionals, that I can find.

 

[anabanana]

and one other thing...

She can't charge me for her office staff's time, either, right? That's not in the court order and I don't think that's customarily accepted, except for para-professional assistants like paralegals or PACs.

 

[I AM ALWAYS LIABLE]

My response:

I can only cite you to California law in this regard. However, it's really "Hornbook", common sense, law when it comes to professional billing.

The judge won't be able to decide or determine whether all 20 calls, for example, were actually made. Maybe 3 of them were. Maybe 10 were. Maybe none of them were. Judges don't guess, and they don't give judgments without credible substantiation.

IAAL

 

[anabanana]

You can't bill for time spent billing, right? I mean, that's overhead. That's the cost of doing business. And by extension, the time spent disputing billing shouldn't be billable either, right?

Every time she writes me a letter demanding that I pay her, she adds charges for time spent writing the letter and time spent reading my replies that request details for her charges. And if you do a job wrong in the first place, you can't really charge for the time it takes to correct your own error, right? Maybe that's too vague. The parties agreed to specific terms and she misrepresented them in the agreement, and the court told her to fix the agreement and she charged like $400 to fix two sentences. What chutzpah! She's a nut!