What if your limo doesn't show up for your wedding

[Brookenstein]

So what happened in court?

[Viper_Dude]

As much as it pains me, I will give the abridged version of my big day in court. Basically before our case the judge made us go out to the lobby to exchange documents and see if we could mediate an agreement. My court party consisted of me, my wife, and my mother (who was a witness). He was all alone (no limo driver with him either). We had a stack of documents related to the case, all he brought was a copy of the contract... unsigned! We never had a contract to sign.

At this point he began bargaining with us. He first offered half our deposit back, then $150 cash, and the final offer was for $150 plus 2 hours use of a limo on our anniversary. Needless to say I declined and opted to appear in front of the judge.

The judge ripped him to pieces. He kept trying to say, "But my contract clearly states we don't give refunds due to traffic delays." To which the judge would respond, "An unsigned contract is not admissable in court." And then the limo owner tried to pull an ace out of the hole by saying, "Well I offered the Smiths $150 of their deposit back." The judge says, "I thought the amount in question was $250?" The limo owner says, "Well, I charge a $100 gratuity for my limo driver, and I still had to pay him." At this point the judge lost it, and told him you can't charge a gratuity on a service that's not been provided. He then went on to say that the guy was lucky we weren't suing for more.

So we won our $250 plus all court costs, and we may win an additional $150 ($30 each for the 5 cars that had to drive down to the reception that were going to ride in the limo). Now we just have to wait a month for the judge's decision regarding the $150 and then we get our money! Yay, the good guys won!

[Brookenstein]

Wow, what a PITA, but good for you.  I'm glad it worked out in your favor and the judge saw through him.  

[Brewman]

Sounds like you prevailed.  Hope you don't have any trouble collecting the judgement.
 I can't believe they didn't ask you to sign a contract when you hired them- what nerve, presenting an unsigned contract in court and expecting a judge to enforce it.

[Spatech_tuo]

So we won our $250 plus all court costs, and we may win an additional $150 ($30 each for the 5 cars that had to drive down to the reception that were going to ride in the limo). Now we just have to wait a month for the judge's decision regarding the $150 and then we get our money! Yay, the good guys won!

I'm sure you'll be happy to have the $250 and even the addional $150 but to me that would pale in comparison to the feeling that in the end the truth prevailed to the tune of "FU buddy, you got what you deserved".

[Viper_Dude]

I'm sure you'll be happy to have the $250 and even the addional $150 but to me that would pale in comparison to the feeling that in the truth prevailed and to the tune of, "FU buddy, you got what you deserved".

Amen Spatech. I was grinning ear to ear as we walked out of that courtroom. I couldn't believe he had the nerve to offer us $150 to get us to walk away! No way was I going to settle after everything his company put us through!

[badval]

Happened to my little sister at her wedding this summer.  We improvised & used my Blazer as the Limo.  It was close from the ceremony to the reception, so wasn't really a big deal.

http://cmv.onlinestoragesolution.com/75.jpg

All my amateur photos from the wedding (like anyone cares.....)

http://cmv.onlinestoragesolution.com/wedding.htm

[Viper_Dude]

Happened to my little sister at her wedding this summer.  We improvised & used my Blazer as the Limo.  It was close from the ceremony to the reception, so wasn't really a big deal.
http://cmv.onlinestoragesolution.com/75.jpg

LOL, I'm glad to see your little sister was able to turn it around and have fun with it.

So what was your sister's limo company's excuse?

[badval]

I'm sure she followed up w/ them after the honeymoon, but they are pretty laid back people & just went with the flow.  Wasn't really a "crisis" - no limo? fine - jump in here

I think what happened was that the parents took the limo to the reception assuming there were supposed to be 2 or it would go back & get us, but only 1 was really supposed to be there for just the bride & groom.  Everyone else was supposed to drive.  Those of us in the wedding party had to stick around for pictures & when we finally got done, limo wasn't there.  I never asked her what happened, but I think that was the deal.  If so, no point in telling the parents they weren't supposed to take it - would have just made them feel bad.

[Viper_Dude]

Back to the top again. Today was the limo company's last day to file an appeal... and they did! So now I get to wait longer to receive my money, and I may end up back at court again. Not exactly the way I'd hope things would go.

[Brewman]

They've lost, and the only recourse for them is to drag it out.  I suppose you have to go back to court again?  

[Viper_Dude]

They've lost, and the only recourse for them is to drag it out.  I suppose you have to go back to court again?  

Thankfully Brewman, I found out I don't have to go to court. Apparently the judge will review his appeal, and decide whether the magistrate's decision is legit. I can now file an appeal to his appeal for $25.00 (which he will have to pay if he loses). If you have time to kill, here's the appeal he submitted (complete with his own spelling errors):

Dear Sir’s and Ma’am,

This letter is being written is objection to Magistrate Moser’s decision on case 2006SCI-93.

We respectfully object to the Findings of Fact and Conclusions of law in which Magistrate Moser ordered $250 in damages and $150 in incidentals to our previous customer. We have never been shown or given any proof of any damages caused by our company. Our position is that the customer cancelled our driver after knowing he was caught up in traffic, they were never told anything about were the traffic was, only the location of the limousine. Our contract clearly states we are not responsible for any obstacle that may extend our time. It also states that we reserve the right to a 15 minute grace period as like our customer gets.

The customer contracted with us on 11-26-05 for the time of 6:30pm. The week of their wedding they called several times asking to move the time up to 6:00pm. They were told on every occasion that it was not possible. The magistrate found that we were in breach because we were 25 minutes late. This is incorrect. He believes we were due there at 6:00pm. We were due at 6:30pm. According to the customers phone records they didn’t make any phone calls to us until 6:30. I believe this proves they knew the time to be 6:30. They also claimed in court that they tried calling us in May several times and never gat a return phone call. Again, we believe based on their own phone records that they proved we are accessible at all times and never left any messages that were unreturned.

We feel the customer clearly intended to complain when they were told they could not move their pickup time up one half hour.

We don’t understand how our cancelled transportation from their church to the hotel reception could have cost them $400. We called the Millennium Hotel and spoke with the Catering department who is in charge of wedding receptions and was told that all guest must pay for parking. We were informed that behind the hotel you can park in public parking for $8.00, in front for $15.00 and the only parking the hotel offers is Valet at a rate of $20.00. Their guests would have paid to park anyway.

As for paying for missed photos, we were not contracted for any other stops other than the one at the hotel.

They also claimed that they were late to their reception. This can’t be true because we were contracted for drop off at 8:30pm. We are quite sure that they could have made it to the reception in one hour and 45 minutes. We sent our driver to their church after he was cancelled. He was there at 6:50pm and the customers were already gone. They claim we went to the wrong church, even though we confirmed their information the day before. We feel they would still have had plenty of time to get from the church near Beechmont at 6:45 to the Millennium Hotel downtown.

We respectfully request that this decision be reviewed and overturned. We feel we still could have provided exceptional service. We wish the court to take into consideration that we normally have a 4 hour minimum for wedding service but the customer claimed not to be able to afford it. We agreed to do the 2 hour to help the customer out. It takes a minimum of 2-3 hours to prepare for a charter with all the office work, calls, computer work with map questing and confirming vehicle maintenance, detailing/ cleaning of limousine and gas.

We were open to discussing the issue of refund. We were willing to offer the customer free transportation to and from the airport for the honeymoon. We never got the chance to make the customer happy. This is why we strongly feel they intended on complaining.

We tried several times to satisfy the Plaintiff but he only continued to demand hiss not refundable deposit and damages as well as a written apology. The day of the hearing we afford to return $125.00 of his nonrefundable deposit. They would have received a total of $407.00 of their $532.00. We were willing to return all but the $125 to cover our time and fuel invested.

Thank you for your time and attention to this matter.