Hi! I've spent two months and over 500 hours working on a project for a client (under a contract that would give me 50% of the profits). Now that the site is 99.999% complete and ready for launch (7 days away), he's wanting to ditch me because I took a day off. He's violating contract by not giving me 2 weeks notice and he's still using some of my work -- even though he's said he won't. The contract also states that he can't use any of my work at all ever if he ditches me. I guess my big question is this: what's my recourse? I can sue for breach of contract, but that won't really get me anywhere since the site hasn't made any money yet. Any ideas? I jut found out this morning, and I'm trying to explain to him what a huge mistake he's making, but he's probably not going to listen. Sadly, I didn't foresee this in the beginning, but I suspected he would do this when I took my first day off in 17 days, after working more than 13 hours the day before. It was one hell of a quick turnaround too: Sunday: "I love it," Monday: "We've got a lot of work to do" (I work thirteen hours), Tuesday: my day off, Wednesday: "This isn't working out kthnxbai." Griffin.
you can sue for the value of the contract, since you make profit based on the site's profit, the suit won't be anywhere near finished until the site has started making money, so you get your figure right there.
You definitely have a right to sue. I recommend getting to an attorney ASAP. You don't want to say anything or do anything without realizing it that could get you sued by the other guy.
Thanks for all the help! Jason: Mine was (and are usually) drawn up on the fly, so sorry can't help you there. I'd suggest writing one in plain english, setting it aside for a few days and coming back to it. If you're near a library, you can look at law books by Nolo -- they're great books and can be a huge help if you rin your own business. Sentry: Thanks for the advice. Sadly my lawsuit budget is currently 3 cents and some lint (as another poster put it so perfectly). I'll get a lawyer on contingency if I'm in a position where I have to, but I'm not fond of the idea of going to court. Cylon: Thanks for the good thoughts (and advice!). This site had languished in non-development for two years before I came along, and the guy is too busy to answer emails, let alone run a large site on his own. His site's about to crash and burn big-time. I hate to sound cocky, but without me his site is done for. With that in mind, that business isn't likely to be worth anything, so that really sours me on any kind of legal recourse (via a civil suit or something similar). I'm seriously starting to consider sending him an official invoice for at least some fo the work I put in. If I charged him my hourly rate (which is 1/2-1/3 the going rate), it would come out to $12'000. If I charged him my per-project rate it would be about $3'000-4'000 -- although honestly at this point I'm starting to consider just charging him a fairly small amount and settling it and getting him out of my life for good. He breached contract in a major way, and I could sue for the full cost of the project (and win) -- but I'm kind of waffling as to how I want to approach it. I want some of my time investment back, but since that's impossible I'd at least like to be paid decently for what work I did. I've sent him a small list accounting for all the money I've spent on the project out of pocket (he requested the tally so he could repay me). I think if he refuses to pay me I'm going to send him a very large, notarized invoice with a notice that it'll be sent to collections. If he does pay it (all $42 of it), I might rethink that course of action, but at this point it's all about what his intention was when he canned me... which I have no way of really knowing unfortunately. Wow, that's a long spiel! Thanks for listening!