Prince ordered to pay video editor $58,000

[Bryan Keith]

I had a situation about 10 years ago where a client never paid me several thousand dollars for a job. After it was clearly apparent that he was deliberately ignoring me, I took him to small claims court. I won the case…he never even showed up. But I still didn’t have my money. The court suggested I get a writ of execution, where the marshall goes to collect belongings of the deadbeat. Because of some legal loophole, having something to do with the fact that he ran his business out of his house, the deadbeat simply refused entry to the marshall (duh!) and that was that. I was now out what he owed me, I was out the court costs and I was also out the $100 bucks or so for the writ. But hey…I won the case!!! Gotta love the legal system. I just had to walk away as a life lesson learned.

[Mark Suszko]

For the next person in this situation, try to do what we did and garnish the bank accounts instead. Once you have the paper from the judge, it’s like a warrant and the bank has to tell you if the guy has any money in their bank. Since the deadbeat in our case paid us (once) by check, he gave away where he did most of his banking so we attacked thru that window and got most of what we had coming.

In our case going thru small claims was relatively simple, but it helped that we were between 9-5 jobs and technically unemployed and could basically devote entire days pursing these things… Other folks knee-deep in various projects and commitments may do the math and decide their time based on hourly rate is worth more than the time spent chasing the payback thru the courts.

The most clever of the grinders have already done this math problem for you and it is part of their strategy, gambling that you will not go the extra distance just on principle to get your money, becasue it’s not worth the extra work and disruption. Everything revolves around relative cost/benefit with them.

[Steve Wargo]

Get a baseball bat and go to his house at 10pm. Knock on the door with the bat. Tell him that you were in the neighborhood and just wanted to say “Hi” and ask when he’ll be hiring you again. His wife will tell him to pay you.

Steve Wargo
Tempe, Arizona
It’s a dry heat!

Sony HDCAM F-900 & HDW-2000/1 deck
5 Final Cut (not quite PRO) systems
Sony HVR-M25 HDV deck
2-Sony EX-1 HD .