Question On Going To Small Claims?

[MG&Lsmom]

So just as I suspected, as soon as Grammy was out of school for the summer my DCB is disappearing. She's leaving the door open by telling me her hours got cut today. She was getting behind, having mental issues and sent home from her retail job several times over the last month. I verbally agreed to allow pay for only days DCB would be attending, he was previously full time. She owes me $90 for services provided, as in days DCB actually attended. However, we never resigned a contract and if she doesn't pay on Monday I'd like to take her to small claims for the whole amount including late fees. Could be upwards of $700. What are my chances of making it stick after verbally allowing her to pay for only days used until she got caught up? I know I never should have done it. I'm pretty sure I'll get the $90 once she gets the paperwork. She doesn't want to find herself and her finances in front of a magistrate iykwim

[MyAngels]

If she does not pay you promptly on Monday, I would prepare a letter showing the full amount that you are entitled to under your contract, along with a small claims complaint already filled out and ready for service. Tell her that you will file the complaint with the court on *** date, but will settle for $90 (or whatever amount you deem appropriate) if paid in cash by *** date.

If she pays, great, but if not, then you can decide whether you want to go to court over it.

[Christian Mother]

I would either speak with her today if little guy is in care today or if he is not then contact her today and tell her that before care can be given on Monday you will need to be up to date on what she owes you ($90). If she drops this little guy off with out a check in hand you need to politely turn her away and say "opps sorry, per our conversation I need to be paid what is owed to me and then you can drop off little guy." You will pretty much know from that conversation if she is going to pay or not. Do you have any kind of contract with her for the care of this little guy? Something you can go on in regards to your biz? I have never had to file a claim before so I am not sure if you need prof of care to claim.

[jojosmommy]

All I know is it costs $90 just to file a small claim in our area. If she knows this she might assume you will just forget about it.

Good Luck!

[MG&Lsmom]

I would either speak with her today if little guy is in care today or if he is not then contact her today and tell her that before care can be given on Monday you will need to be up to date on what she owes you ($90). If she drops this little guy off with out a check in hand you need to politely turn her away and say "opps sorry, per our conversation I need to be paid what is owed to me and then you can drop off little guy." You will pretty much know from that conversation if she is going to pay or not. Do you have any kind of contract with her for the care of this little guy? Something you can go on in regards to your biz? I have never had to file a claim before so I am not sure if you need prof of care to claim.

He was not in care yesterday and she asked me not to call because she was low on minutes on her phone. Always an excuse. We do have a contract for a specific amount per week regardless of attendance to be paid by Friday for the following week of care. Also included in the contract is a $10/day late fee for payments not received by Friday. His next scheduled day to be here is Monday. We'll see what happens. She works retail so if she's not scheduled, she hasn't been sending him. I verbally told her she could have 2-3 weeks of only sending/paying for time she was in work to give her a chance to get caught up. Those 3 weeks are up, she hasn't paid me for any services since. She either has her hours cut or calls in because she doesn't have the gas money to get to work. No work, no pay. Excuse, excuse, excuse.

All I know is it costs $90 just to file a small claim in our area. If she knows this she might assume you will just forget about it.

Good Luck!

Here it's $40 so since we're at double what she actually owes it's worth it. Plus I'll be adding on filing fees. There is no doubt with my contract that she will have to pay the $90 + court fees. It's the whole 3 weeks of care + late fees I'm wondering if the court will make her pay. She receives child support payment garnished from baby daddy's paycheck. I believe they too into consideration her daycare costs when figuring this amount. So I'm hoping this will be income that can be garnished to pay me.

[Mike Lassiter]

I had to go through this ages ago to get paid for changing a engine in a Vega (tells you how long ago if you are old enough to remember them) for a co-worker. I had to go to courthouse and file claim and pay fileing fee. Then had to take off work to go to court when the date was set. After sitting all morning waiting for our turn the judge is going to set a trial date since the liar told him he paid me and ask the judge if it could be heard today since HE had to mis work to be here. That was great by me as I couldn't get paid for missing work BECAUSE I DIDN'T INCLUDE THAT IN THE AMOUNT OWED ME!
The judge scheduled us for that afternoon where I won my case. Now you have to collect. The court garnished his pay check and in a couple of weeks I got PART of my money. I called the court clerks office asking why only partial recovery. She said they couldn't take all a persons check; they had to allow them something to live on. She told me I would need to come back and PAY AGAIN for another garnishment to be taken out of his check. I was about 20 at this time and thinking this is a bunch of crap. I got cheated out of my money and have to repeatedly go to the courthouse and pay to get what the judge ordered was mine?
I'm done with this. Funny though I got the balance of money owed unexpectedly the next month. The guy I had to take to small claims was working where I did but had left and started working for the state. I heard they only get paid once a month, so I guess they could only garnish so much at a time and had to wait until the next paycheck to take the rest. It seemed the woman who told me I had to come back and pay for another garnishment didn't know exactly what she was talking about.
So - if you have to go to court be sure you include any cost you incure to go so it can be added to what you are suing for. The judge will have to agree to them but from my experience if you don't ask on the front end you can't include anything other than what you ask for.
I watched a lawyer who represented a bank make a couple of thousand dollars in less than an hour by standing up and saying we move for justice your honor. He got 20% of amount banks had filed for as reasonable attorney fees.
Anyway hopefully that helps you know what to expect.

[MG&Lsmom]

So I finally calculated what she really owes me and it's over $1000 if you include her contracted weekly tuition fee + late fees. I added up late fees for each week's tuition not paid in full by it's due date.

As for the time DCB has actually attended, if we were going on a pay for services only she owed $90.

Today she showed up with $20 claiming baby daddy stole $40 from her last night. Another excuse.

[PeanutsGalore]

So I finally calculated what she really owes me and it's over $1000 if you include her contracted weekly tuition fee + late fees. I added up late fees for each week's tuition not paid in full by it's due date.

As for the time DCB has actually attended, if we were going on a pay for services only she owed $90.

Today she showed up with $20 claiming baby daddy stole $40 from her last night. Another excuse.

I can truly understand your frustration, really. But at LEAST she's not completely dropping off the face of the earth. A payment is an indication that she's not necessarily planning on skipping out on you. The boy is done with care, right? I wouldn't watch him anymore until she catches up on payment.

[Unregistered]

I don't think its fair...

If you agreed to a verbal adjustment to your contract and did not ask to sign a new one, and have acted on this verbal agreement, to look back at a written one that is void and calculate a huge amount. I don't think you would win in court on that one either. Also, if you suspected a change, why not just talk it over? You could be keeping the door open and being fair (and benefiting from some pay) or you could close it to them and open the spot for another child. I don't think you should be counting up what you might have made if you hadn't agreed to a change, and I think you should be thankful for the 20.00 now and hoping faithfully for the other 70.00.

Also -

Accepting payments shows a good faith effort among both parties, rendering court unnecessary.

[MG&Lsmom]

I can truly understand your frustration, really. But at LEAST she's not completely dropping off the face of the earth. A payment is an indication that she's not necessarily planning on skipping out on you. The boy is done with care, right? I wouldn't watch him anymore until she catches up on payment.

No, he's still in care, when he shows up. She's treating me like drop in care for whenever she feels like going to work. Which I guess I'm allowing and enabling. She told work she was only available M, W, F from now on. She gets her schedule on Saturday afternoon. Then tells me when he'll be showing up. Then she calls out to work every other scheduled day and gives me 30 mins notice that DCB is not coming. She normally drops him off an hour before her scheduled start. Sometimes it's 8am sometimes it's 11am. So I could be out doing things, but I'm home because he's supposedly coming. She always had every intention of sending him full time regardless of her work schedule so she could do school work. As long as she's paying I have no problem with her doing whatever she wants while DCB is in my care and sticking to the same hours every day. But that's not what's happening.

I don't think it's unfair to assess the full extend of the written contract at this point. We never changed her contract permanently. In good faith when she could not pay her contracted amount I gave her a verbal agreement to not enforce the payments for 2-3 weeks while she got her finances straightened out. Her end of the bargain was to not bring DCB on days she was not working and to pay something towards her bill. She hasn't stuck to either part of the deal in full. She's left him in my care for a full day when she got sent home from work and she did not pay a dime for 3 full weeks. To allow her son's father to take money from her to go out at night and to purchase cigarettes and alcohol (both I have seen proof of her doing) instead of paying me and then claiming poverty is rude and disrespectful, nevermind unappreciative of what I've done for her. And now she's talking about quitting her job, so how is she going good faith to try to pay her balance?

[Unregistered]

no pay, no play

unless you just love having this kid around...

Tell her its time to catch up and nail down the kids hours or move on and pay you.

It doesn't sound like you respect her at all, and that is never a good foundation for a relationship.