Key Lesson
- When contract enforcement depends on discovery, subpoenas, and legal doctrines like prevention, small claims court is the wrong venue.
- Higher courts are required to compel evidence and enforce compliance.
- Small claims court allows circus performances. Be prepared for wild statements that have nothing to do with your claim. Focus on the four elements of Breach of Contract, nothing more or less. Don’t get distracted.
CEO of Verdant Strategies, Rachel Wright, informed the judge that Joseph sent Bible verses saying, “women should submit to men.” Even if this were true, basic evidence rules prohibit irrelevant information. The judge paid no attention to this irrelevant claim. Zero. The Bible verse Rachel cited did not make it more probable that Rachel did not breach the contract by interfering with Joseph’s ability to perform his contractual duties.
At no point during the trial did Rachel provide any relevant evidence to support her defense. Joseph claimed that Rachel breached their contract by obstructing Joseph’s ability to perform his contractual duties. Rachel had a duty to approve the content Joseph created, and Rachel refused, causing a material breach of contract with expectation damages for the remaining value of the contract.
Joseph created 30 days of content and was awaiting approval by the Verdant team, as per the contractual agreement in writing, in fact, and in standard operating procedures. The approvals were refused by Rachel and CMO Florian, either intentionally or negligently, while they were at MJBizCon 2024 and sponsored after parties.
The week after MJBizCon, Rachel’s team was apparently overwhelmed by the event and too busy to fulfill contractual duty of approving time-sensitive content for publication. Then the week after that, Rachel’s team was too busy to approve content while preparing for their company-wide 30-day holiday break from December 19, 2024, to January 19, 2025.
Even though Rachel claimed the contract gave Joseph autonomy to publish without approval, this was not how the contract operated in fact. According to Rachel and Florian, the technical nature of the content required micromanagement and constant direct oversight to ensure accuracy. In addition to accuracy demands, Rachel’s mood changed often, requiring full recreation and rescheduling of content that was already created, approved, and scheduled for publication.
Joseph, Rachel, and her team agreed to conduct weekly content approval meetings to approve content through the strict seven-layer approval process, yet only one 30-minute meeting occurred the week before MJBizCon. Rachel refused weekly content approval meetings for at least 10 weeks.
Rachel blatantly lied to the court, saying that Joseph provided all the tools. This was simply not true. Verdant demanded Joseph use all company-provided tools so they could control the entire process.
Rachel claimed Joseph harassed and threatened her. The truth. A legal notice is not a threat. Nor is good-faith communication with the intention to resolve the disputes, without the court. Exercising a legal right is never a threat, nor is it even considered harassment by law enforcement officials to any degree.
In the end, Joseph had the right argument, but the wrong venue.
Small Claims courts in Beverly Hills, California, don’t enforce the Prevention Doctrine in Breach of Contract claims.
- The prevention doctrine is a principle in contract law that holds that a party involved in a contract cannot prevent the other party from fulfilling their contractual obligations. Essentially, if one party’s actions make it impossible for the other party to perform their part of the agreement, that first party cannot later claim that the other party failed to meet their obligations. This doctrine aims to ensure fairness in contractual relationships.
Small claims courts in California appear to only enforce damages for work completed, regardless of whether it’s a fixed-duration contract. This was not an at-will W-2 employment contract. It was an independent contractor contract for six months.
Since Rachel’s only defense evidence was a Bible verse, the judge agreed that Rachel violated the contract. We then discussed damage calculations.
Joseph’s claim was valid.
There is no doubt that Rachel breached the contract and breached it first.
All subsequent breaches and damages, after the first breach, are irrelevant and excuse Joseph from performing his duties.
Joseph had the right argument, but the wrong venue.
If Joseph had filed in district court, not small claims, he would have secured a victory for full damages of more than $12,500.
Furthermore, small claims court also does not strictly enforce subpoenas.
Rachel intentionally refused to comply with a subpoena to produce evidence from at least a dozen tools (including company email and Slack messages) that Verdant Strategies owned and controlled.
The judge ignored Joseph’s objection to the defendant’s refusal to comply with a subpoena.
In district court, refusing to comply with a court-ordered subpoena can result in jail time and/or monetary sanctions.
The general procedure to force jail time and/or monetary sanctions on the party refusing to comply with a subpoena is a three-step process.
- Motion to compel (forces them to provide information)
- Motion to show cause (asks the judge to order the non-compliant party to explain why they shouldn’t be held in contempt)
- Motion for contempt (asks the court to penalize the person for willfully disobeying multiple court orders to produce the evidence, using fines or jail to force compliance)
There is no reason to hide evidence beyond full knowledge of wrongdoing.
In the end, Rachel got lucky.
Or her experience as a serial defendant gave her undue confidence in her reckless behavior in breaching contracts and her attitude towards the court.
The lesson.
If one Court doesn’t give you justice, go to the court that will force the right thing to happen.
Rachel’s False Claims And Contradictions Demonstrate A Lack Of Credibility
- Repeated missed deadlines (Lie #1)
- Unresponsiveness (Lie #2)
- Overall performance failures (Lie #3)
- Frequently failed to deliver the required number of articles (Lie #4)
- Exercised full autonomy over tools, schedule, and work methods (Lie #5)
- Disappeared for extended periods, including during critical work phases, forcing staff to cover his responsibilities (Lie #6)
- Submitted a fraudulent invoice for $1,718.80 after termination, claiming payment for work not performed and content never received (Lie #7)
- Posted multiple public, retaliatory online reviews after termination (Lie #8)
- Sent repeated harassing and threatening emails to the company and staff (Lie #9)
- Violated the non-disparagement clause in the independent contractor agreement (Lie #10)
- Caused reputational harm through false public statements (Lie #11)
- Demonstrates a pattern of serial litigation behavior (Lie #12)
- Publicly teaches others how to sue companies without an attorney (Lie #13)
Rhetorical Questions To Rachel’s False Claims And Contradictions.
- How can a contractor miss a deadline when their work was complete?
- How can a contractor be unresponsive during a 30-day company-wide holiday break?
- How can a contractor fail to perform when all the work was complete?
- How can a contractor fail to deliver the required number of articles when they were complete in full?
- How can a contractor have full autonomy while the employer controls all tools and sets the schedule for required meetings?
- How can a contractor disappear during critical work phases during a 30-day holiday break?
- How can a contractor submit a fraudulent invoice for work completed and sent?
- How is it retaliation when both parties submit public negative comments?
- How is a notice of legal action and a settlement offer a threat or harassment?
- How is it a violation of non-disparagement to document the truth and/or opinion of direct first-hand experience of the contract breach and subsequent behavior?
- How is it a false statement when it’s true?
- How are other lawsuits relevant to this lawsuit?
- How is documenting legal issues on a blog relevant to this lawsuit?
