RE: Question about SLAs
An SLA is a contract.
A contract is... a contract.
Does that mean you can take them to small claims court if they don't pay you the agreed SLA credits? --Michael Dillon
Absolutely, so long as the amount in controversy doesn't exceed the small claims limit in your jurisdiction. If it does, off to regular court.
An SLA is a contract.
A contract is... a contract.
Does that mean you can take them to small claims court if they don't pay you the agreed SLA credits?
--Michael Dillon
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michael.dillon@bt.com wrote:
Does that mean you can take them to small claims court if they don't pay you the agreed SLA credits?
--Michael Dillon
Most contracts have an arbitration clause and in my experience small claims courts judges get confused by anything high-tech and will use the arbitration clause to get out of thinking about it.
Steve Rubin wrote:
michael.dillon@bt.com wrote:
Does that mean you can take them to small claims court if they don't pay you the agreed SLA credits?
--Michael Dillon
Most contracts have an arbitration clause and in my experience small claims courts judges get confused by anything high-tech and will use the arbitration clause to get out of thinking about it.
Don't blame small claims courts. Bigger courts have avoided executing their office around tech or big money issues, IME (in my experience). I've seen judges make wrong decisions because the burden on the defendant (would have had to post a bond to do the appeal) seemed "too great". $2,000, $200,000 or $20,000,000 -- if you are the one to get paid, you will usually be happier in a court that handles matters of that size regularly. DJ
On 2/9/07, Steve Rubin <ser@tch.org> wrote:
Does that mean you can take them to small claims court if they don't pay you the agreed SLA credits?
Most contracts [in the U.S. today with largish to large corporations] have an arbitration clause
...though they shouldn't. Arbitration isn't, as far as I know, one of the official branches of government. I always find it rather contrary to logic that a contract, which is governed by the U.S. court system, can be written not to be covered by the U.S. court system. What an amazing loophole for corporate legal that is. (ObExperience: Every *forced* arbitration decision out of the 200+ I've researched has been in favor of the original contract writer -- the service provider and not its customer. The only arbitration settlements I've seen go the other way were only voluntarily moved to arbitration; one pretty major such settlement was made into a movie about a large energy company....) -- -- Todd Vierling <tv@duh.org> <tv@pobox.com> <todd@vierling.name>
On February 9, 2007 at 09:41 michael.dillon@bt.com (michael.dillon@bt.com) wrote:
An SLA is a contract.
A contract is... a contract.
Does that mean you can take them to small claims court if they don't pay you the agreed SLA credits?
Oh I'm certain you could if you wanted to be bothered, it's a contract with a promise of value like any other. Absolutely nothing unusual or even very difficult to understand unless it gets into a real technical pissing match that confuses the referee. But that's all a crap shoot at best and time-consuming. One reason to always avoid direct legal action is that even if you get what you're due it's exceedingly rare to be awarded legal or other expenses. Expect only the prima facie value. Despite common folklore it's just not done, that's the cost of not figuring out some other way to settle the matter as far as the court is concerned. In fact, at least here in MA, I don't believe a small claims court has any authority to award either legal fees (and even if you don't bring a lawyer it might be a good idea to rack up a coupla hours with your lawyer to make sure you're using the right lingo and statutes etc), or punitive damages tho they can award some direct costs like if you had to (reasonably) pay a moving company to move some object in question, something like that, and you'd better have a receipt and it better not be a "normal" expense (like don't bother asking for bus fare or gasoline for your car or phone calls or other incidentals.) I'd just say you want to go to legal means for things like this only as a very last resort and maybe not even then. What you want to do is figure out ways to raise the stakes in a way to make them into better people even if it goes entirely against their nature. -- -Barry Shein The World | bzs@TheWorld.com | http://www.TheWorld.com Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: 800-THE-WRLD | Login: Nationwide Software Tool & Die | Public Access Internet | SINCE 1989 *oo*
participants (6)
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Barry Shein -
Deepak Jain -
Fox,Thomas -
michael.dillon＠bt.com -
Steve Rubin -
Todd Vierling