QuestionQUESTION: my question is regarding my bride maids dresses and the so called contract we signed with a dress shop. we are due to get married on June 21st of 2008 and it is now the 13th and still no dress are done. the contract states nothing about a pick up date and the dress shop owner ignores all attempts of contacting him. his helper states she knows nothing about the dresses or what is going on or even where he is at. we have left message after message until we got tired and told him (when we showed up by surprise to the shop) that we would sue him. we live in garden grove, and the bride maids live in san diego - riverside - san bernandino - whittier, and they all have jobs of course, so it is almost impossible to have all the bride maids going to the fittings, until the weekend. if the fittings arent ready by the 15th of june, do we have a case for a lawsuit?
ANSWER: Actually you do have a basis for a lawsuit because the dressmaker who issued the contract is responsible for giving a tenative date or time for pick up and if you told them when your scheduled wedding date was they're supposed to have the job finished before or at least 5 days prior to the date of your wedding. How long have you been trying to contact this person? If it's been a couple months you should be contacting an attorney and I would also draft a letter to the owner stating that you have contacted the following people:
the police(informing them a report has been filed)
the better buisness bureau
the CA state's attorney's office
and a private attorney
also they have a complaint online with ripoffreport.com
contact city's consumer affairs bureau
Keep a copy of the letter and submit with the police report so that they can't say you were harassing them. If you have a copy of the phone bill cell or home that lists the shop's number on it of the number of times you've been trying to contact them. If this is submitted with all your documentation you should see some results. Sounds like this shop is shady if they signed a contract which means it's legally binding and they can be held liable if they were instructed by the customer to have the dresses finished by a certain time and they didnt give you a time.
They can be prosecuted for taking money for services or goods and not producing what the customer paid for. I would sit down and get all the information together and contact an attorney to handle this case because you could see restitution for legal fees and the money for what you put into the dresses. The fact they signed a contract makes them legally responsible for completing a job that you paid for. You got enough to basically put them out of business. I would also contact the consumer bureau of your home city as well and file complaints so it's on record.
Once it's on record there's no way this store will stay in buisness because this could spark other brides who may have gotten taken to file complaints too if they too paid for dresses and didnt get them in the time allotted before their scheduled wedding date. Keep me posted on the outcome of what happens ok?
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QUESTION: i told the dress maker that i was going to sue him and he said that i cant win cause the contract doesnt have a date there eventhough he promised us the dresses on wednesday the 4th of june. and again the 6th and again the 11th. i checked out the better business bureau and he got sued last year and he lost. after we told him that we were going to sue him he said that he would have the dresses ready for fitting the 15th of june and if everyone came to fit on that day we would hurry up and get them done by monday (which is the 5 days you were talking about). but i dont know how good the quality of the dresses is going to be. if we get the dresses on monday and not happy with the results, we still have a basis for a lawsuit right?
Answerhe promised us the dresses on wednesday the 4th of june. and again the 6th and again the 11th.<------He's giving you three different dates and that's to throw you off so he can avoid completing the job that you hired him to do. He can't say you're going to lose because there's a written agreement which is admissable in a court of law. If the judge asks why there's no turnaround time frame and if this guy can't answer that he can be held accountable for giving you three different completion dates that are not concrete. Yeah you can sue if the dresses were not made to your specification.
I would advise any bride after your experience to go to a reputable shop like David's Bridal and get the dresses made since they can get a turn around time pretty fast and what's messed up is how you're just over 2 weeks from your wedding and this guy is promising the 15th that's still not good enough your wedding is on the 22nd you don't have a month to correct this problem. This guy should be sued and pay for the entire cost of all your bridesmaids dresses plus to have another shop to do them even if it means paying extra for time to get them tailored.
I would still take legal action against this guy because apparently he had not learned from the first suit maybe a second and losing his buisness and having his license revoked will make him see reason that when someone hires you to do a job you are liable to complete the job and he signed a contract with you that's a written agreement so he's promising you what you paid for. What you can get him for is breach of contract and failure to produce services or goods that was paid for in advance. You would have to talk to a lawyer if you're seeking damages and restitution because of this major screw up that's putting your wedding completely off schedule.
