Answer

You have a claim for breach of contract. In order to file suit you would have to draft a complaint (or have one drafted by an attorney). In the complaint you would have to state sufficient facts to make out your claim for the breach of contract (the fact he said he would do the work, he did not do the work, and if he is claiming he did the work he did it in such a poor manner as that it did not satisfy the contract). Once the complaint is drafted, you must file it with the court and serve the complaint and summons on the painting company. At this point, the painting company has 20 days to answer the suit after which time you can file for a default judgment. There will be a discovery period during which you can seek discovery and take depositions from anyone and the other side can do the same. After discovery closes the case will proceed to trial. Your amount is over thwe $3000 limit to bring this suit in small claims court. You should also seek attorney's fees and costs as part of your claim.

Courts will read the contract on these cases to determine exactly what was supposed to be performed. The court will then hear your evidence regarding the lack of performance or the fact that the performance was so substandard that it was effectively no performance at all. This includes your witnesses, which you will have to qualify as experts before the court and this requires some special steps that are fairly complicated, which is why I suggested you hire an attorney. After you present you case, the defendant gets to put on his evidence of how he did the job properly. Judges are generally not going to side with a business that did not do work they contracted and were paid to perform.

Again, the most critical thing is lining up statements and reports from your experts.

If you have any more specific questions I can answer please ask.

Expert:	PaulMJD
Pos. Feedback:	99.5 %
Accepts:
Answered:	6/10/2008

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JA Mentor -Attorney Labor/employment, corporate, sports law, admiralty/maritime and civil rights law