Wedding lawsuit due to pandemic

View Quoted Comment I spoke with an attorney and unless the contract states “act of God or force of majeure”. My contract states, “changed to the event date are not permitted”. Therefore, they have breached the contract.

View Quoted Comment Thank you so so much! We have an amazing blessing to look forward to, a baby girl, with all the chaos and sadness going on. I attempted to work with the venue. We were even considering on doing a vow renewal, once we see the world return to “normal”. But there is no way they’re going to lock us in a new re-written contract that protects them and in the long run can hurt us by paying more out pocket. Since we clearly see how they conduct business and are more than unprofessional, we won’t ever be considering that.

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I don't blame you at all! I wouldn't want to do any business with them either! Hopefully you can get your money back and use it on that amazing blessing that is on the way! Best of luck to you!

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Well thats good!

View Quoted Comment Thank you so much for knowledge! Per my legal advise, “ It is clearly stating the deposit is non-refundable and under normal circumstances, that may be enforceable with no real recourse. Here, however, since the venue is who cancelled - when there is actually no provision that allows the venue to cancel and since the law/guidance prevented the venue from providing what was promised, I would argue their cancellation was a breach of the agreement entitling you to a full refund. This is further supported by the fact that the contract itself did not allow you to reduce guests in order to go through with a smaller wedding to meet social distancing and other state guidance. I don't see anything in that contract that says if they have to reschedule or cancel they can do so. For that reason, I would argue you are entitled to a refund since they could not provide what you paid for on the date agreed to.”

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Thanks for sharing. I'm glad you're lawyer has a strategy. I can't speak to whether it will work. If it does, please let us know. As someone else mentioned, a lot of brides are dealing with this situation and would like to explore options. For a lot of people (not necessarily in your case), the amount of the deposit is within the small claims court limit, and it does not necessarily make sense for the person to hire an attorney because even if they win, the legal fees consume the cost of the recovered amount. In many circumstances, other factors outside of the written law, impact the resolution of cases. So if you choose to move forward, please update.

View Quoted Comment Thank you so much!! My heart truly goes out to the venue and I attempted in a civil manner to work this out. Honestly, my emotions aside, they care more about the dollar. They never asked why were asking for a refund, nor did they apologize once for the chaos we’re ALL dealing with. I’m a bride who just had her dream wedding destroyed and the way they have handled the situation is very unprofessional. We could’ve worked something out, but not when they’re only protecting themself and want to hold our 25k for years on end. Oh my gosh I’m so happy to hear you’re protected and there are good venues out there that do the right thing! Best of luck to y’all and God bless!

View Quoted Comment I absolutely will! My heart goes out to all the brides dealing with this unfortunate circumstance. What state are you located in?

View Quoted Comment Lol I was a little confused myself! It seemed people were quick to defend the venue. Maybe it was the way I initially wrote the forum and wasn’t specific on details? Either way, I’ve never heard of a business keeping 25k when they provided no service. My venue is only out of time, a walk through the property and setting up a food tasting by a caterer in their facility. I’ll be more than happy to pay for their time for doing so, but not 25k! I’ll most definitely keep y’all updated.

View Quoted Comment Good luck!

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I'm in Maryland. So on my previous comment, if you move forward, you file a lawsuit, and the venue must file an answer. In the answer, they can raise a variety of defenses. Most likely, the venue will raise the defense of force majeure/act of god and argue due to the pandemic, which qualified as an act of god, they could not perform the contract, i.e. their perform of the terms of the contract was excused by the pandemic. Whether this defense works depends heavily on state law. Usually, there's motions and such, and settlement. However, if a judge rules on the case, the judge will either agree with the venue or agree with you based on the law. The vast majority of civil cases settle, so a judge may actual never rule on the issue, it just depends.

View Quoted Comment I believe you’re right and that is the defense they will use, given the circumstances. The venue tried settling up per our last conversation, stating that “we’re not the only ones to bring these claims against them, and to be up front it cost them around 5k to go back and forth. They offered to settle at 5k to avoid litigation.” 5k out of 25k?! ABSURD!!”

View Quoted Comment I’m also very curious how it would rule out if it were to go to a judge. I found many lawsuits in the state of Texas against venues.

I’m so sorry for this! I can imagine.. I was headed down that path I refused a new date! I said I’m keeping my date or I’m taking legal action because pandemic wasn’t listed anywhere on my contract! So we end up keeping the date! But you’ll win anyway because none of these venues listed a pandemic their contracts!

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Hello, we had a similar issue with our original venue and they not only tried to make us change our date and told us we could only have 10 people attend (including vendors), but they refused to refund us (not just our deposit, but everything else we paid). Do you have any recommendations on how to go about this? Please feel free to private message me if you can!!!

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Katelyn,

That doesn't mean that full payment is still proper. One party performed in full (paid the price) and the other side does not. That could be unjust enrichment - depending on the state even if lack of performance is excused because of force majeure, that doesn't entitle the party who already received full performance to retain payment for the service they could not provide.

Definitely not legal advice at all, I am not a lawyer - but just a thought about what you are saying even in light of the breach argument. Attorneys need to look at state laws carefully here.

View Quoted Comment Aww so happy y’all were able to move forward with your plans! My hubby and I kept our date and got married on our property! Two weeks of planning with no loved ones present, but it was still beautiful! I got to marry my best friend and that’s what mattered most! I really wish we could resolve this without litigation, but some people are morally unethical

View Quoted Comment I definitely see both sides to this unfortunate circumstance. I obviously absolutely agree that they’re not entitled to retain full payment for a service they didn’t provide. I can definitely see them using the “force majeure” defense, but would them offering a rescheduled date rule in their favor is my concern? The fact that we signed a mutual contract for an agreed upon date, that stated “no date change is permitted what so ever” in the contact, leaves me to believe they would lose.

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That's so tough! If your lawyer thinks that's a good sign for you, maybe see if they can just send a letter or get on the phone and negotiate something more than what you mentioned before? Otherwise, if you think it's worth whatever their rate is and they think you're in a good position, hopefully just moving ahead will be worth it for the venue to do right by you. Again, so sorry this is happening and good luck!!

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There are variety of legal theories both attorneys could argue here. As a lawyer, I was trying to explain that force majeure/act of God is a defense to breach and give insight as to how the lawsuit might proceed and what the venue might argue. As I said in my post, the defense itself depends heavily on state law (as does unjust enrichment - which is not always an option also based on state law). I never said the defense would automatically work. But it is possible for a judge to excuse the venue for its lack of performance based on force majeure. It's also possible for a judge to order the venue to pay her the amount she already paid.