My husband is a accountant and did some side work with a tennis coach in exchange for my sons tennis lessons. After a month of a rocky business-ship my husband decided we should part ways on the business side. After that the coach canceled 6 weeks of lessons so I chose a different coach at his tennis center. Now, three months later the old coach is coming after me for the cost of the lessons, claiming fraud, as well going around telling people my husband would call and show up at his house all hours of the night. In actuallity it was him calling our home all hours of the night, very unstable person and when we realized we parted ways. My husband did work for this man, what do I do now?
Nothing.
We have phone records from him calling all hours of the night, even after being told not to call after 9pm. We has called and called this week making threats, demanding we pay him over 300.00. I have had my son at this tennis center for over a year, paid for every lesson prior to him getting the lesson, I have no reason to be dishonest. Today he called threatening us with fraud because he has proof of the lessons (since he paid the other coach) why would he wait and not say something to me back then, he was there for every lesson and never said a word to me. I am confused but know we do not owe him anything. Can he sue us? The tennis center is owned by the city and he simply runs it, contracted employee, he said we are frauding the city…yet the work done was for his personal taxes and not for the city. He was the one who offered the lessons in exchange, not us. I hope I am making sense, I am stressing over this because my husband wants to just pay him to make him go away, I want to stand my ground!
Anybody can sue anyone for anything. Whether he’ll win is another matter.
I have a little more time now, so I’ll flesh this out a little. This is a situation encountered in business all the time. If your husband lived up to his agreement to the extent that 6 weeks of lessons were worth based on his agreement with the instructor, you have nothing to worry about. If the instructor sues you, it sounds like a small claims issue. You would bring all the documentation you have. If the instructor is sending you bills, ignore them. He already knows you don’t intend to pay, so further correspondence with him is unlikely to be useful based on your description.
IANA lawyer, but any claim of fraud seems preposterous to me. If you feel you’ve been libeled or slandered somehow, you will have a hard time proving it. You would need documentation, and/or impartial witnesses. If you believe your husband has lost work as a result of the instructor’s actions, you would need to prove it somehow. Without a signed contract that was cancelled as a result of the instructors statements I doubt you’d have any case. If you think you are being harassed, you would also have to prove that. Someone trying to collect money they think they are owed isn’t harassing you. You would need threats, or obscene phone calls, or something at that level.
So do nothing. My guess is the instructor is having financial difficulties, and doesn’t care about his own reputation. Nobody likes this kind of insulting behavior, but if your husband has done nothing wrong, there is nothing for him or you to do. If you have a great concern, contact an attorney. But you will be spending money for a problem that is not likely to cost you anything.
ETA: Now that I see you’ve responded and indicated he is in contract with the city, gather your evidence and send it to them. He will be fired if your documentation backs up your claims.
Legal advice is better suited to IMHO than GQ.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
Don’t do anything, neither you or your husband did anything wrong. Don’t pay him!
Keep all your records just in case but hopefully he will simply go away if you ignore his meaningless threats. Let him know in no uncertain terms that you have documentation for everything.
If he takes you to court, you’ll win. The most I’d do right now is fnd an attorney - got any friends in the legal business? - and have them send him a stern letter to knock this shit off.
Disclaimer: I am not an attorney but I’ve been in minor legal squabbles several times.
IANAL. Here’s my layman’s take.
How I understand it is that your husband entered into a verbal agreement to exchange accounting service for free tennis lessons. After a few weeks, they decided that they couldn’t work together.
#1) Were the free lessons based on time or task? IOW, was it a, “For every hour the accountant puts in, he’s entitled to two hours of free lessons”? Or was it a “If you prepare my taxes, then you’ll get 6 weeks of free lessons.”
If it was the former, then that’s easy to determine. If your husband logged 12 hours of work, you should be entitled to 24 hours of free coaching, whether or not the task was completed.
If it was based on task, then it’s less clear. Because your husband technically didn’t fulfill his end of the contract, which was to prepare the coach’s taxes.
#2) Were the free lessons to include court time? Sometimes the coach includes the court time in his hourly rate (and he’s responsible for reimbursing the club for the court time) and other times you pay the coach and court fee separately. What was your agreement?
#3) I’m still unclear as to whether you ever got any free lessons out of it. You say the coach canceled all 6 weeks of lessons, so you signed up with a 2nd coach. Did you pay that second coach for his time, or were you still under the understanding that it was part of the quid pro quo with Coach #1?
If he works at the center for the city, and, instead of paying the city, you did services for him, isn’t he the one defrauding the city?
Tell the punk not to call you again. If he does, call the police and ask them what you can do if he keeps calling you after 9 pm. If they can’t do anything, call him back at about 2am some morning and tell him you think your husband undercharged him, and you want your money.
Best wishes,
hh
Thank you for all the wonderful advice. PunditLisa, the agreement was my husband would do the books and taxes (which he was far behind on). Each month he did the books we would get his fee in exchange with the lessons, which the tennis center charges me 42.00 per hour. It was not even, as my husbands work exceded the price of the lessons, but we wanted to help out the coach since his prior accountant had walked away. My husband did so much for this man, but we could not deal with the way he was treating my husband, calling late at night or as early as 4am, expecting my husband to jump at every call. He was not behaving in a professional manner at all. Only after the coach had called off 6 lessons(I had said 6 weeks earlier by mistake) in a row I phoned him and told him I was going to go with another coach at the center, which he immediately got a sharp tongue with me. After that day I only spoke to him when required, but I remained polite since there was the business side of this. He had asked my husband to “change numbers” on forms, things along that line, and my husband explained to him he could go to jail for such a thing, that is when we decided it was not worth dealing with him for free tennis lessons! He called my husband a few times after parting ways asking him to “help” him here and there, but my husband, always polite, told him he was no longer his accountant.
Last night I was made aware this man is telling others my husband was calling him all hours of the night, that he is very unprofessional and he had to get away from him! It was the very opposite. I know this man is hurting for money. Last night after posting on here he called once again stating “who is crazy enough to barder lessons for work”. He owed my husband money first and presented the option, my husband thought he would never see the money so why not take the lessons, it was better than nothing. Today he will be advised to not call again, to keep all communication written. Oh yeah, he even mailed us a invoice yesterday for all the lessons!
I am not your lawyer, and I am probably not licensed in your jurisdiction.
However in my jurisdiction, you would have a good case for slander – verbally communicating falsehoods impugning someone’s professional reputation. And if you were my client in my jurisdiction, I’d advise you to file it sooner rather than later.
This situation seems like it could get messy. Message board legal advice is worth exactly what you paid for it. I suggest you consult a lawyer in your jurisdiction immediately. The couple hundred bucks you pay for the consultation will be worth it in peace of mind alone.
As far as fraud goes, typically, fraud requires making a false statement or false promise that was known to be false at the time it was made. Making a promise and changing your mind later is not typically considered fraud.
I agree with Bearflag; I don’t see fraud here in what you’ve said he’s said. But I’m also confused – it sounds like the accountant did some actual work for the tennis coach, the tennis coach gave some but not all promised lessons, and then the relationship broke up. Now the tennis coach wants to be paid cash for the lessons he actually gave. If that’s the case, and he wants to change the agreement now to cash instead of barter, seems to me the accountant should be paid for the work he did too. I suspect the setoff wouldn’t be in the tennis coach’s favor, so I suspect he hasn’t really thought this through.
Agreed with the confusion. You should NOT do this, but a fun legal exercise might be the following:
By registered mail, send a check to pay the invoices the tennis instructor sent, writing the “tennis lessons” on the memo line, and if the invoice has a number, that number as well. In the same envelope, include (substantially higher) invoices of your own for the accounting services rendered. When he refuses to pay your invoice, sue. NOW you’ve got a leg to stand on: when he claims he does not owe anything for the accounting services because he already paid with the tennis lessons, you hold up copies of the check you sent and say “but you were paid cash for those tennis lessons.”
Of course, this gets you a fun “gotcha” moment in small claims court, but it doesn’t get you money back, and it doesn’t prevent him from continuing to badmouth you to potential clients. (Reminder: don’t do this.)
Side note: your husband, being an accountant, probably already knows this, but the value of the services he rendered to tennis guy must be included in your income taxes. I always thought that was backwards – shouldn’t the value of the tennis lessons be what’s included as income? But no, when you’re trading services for services, the value of services rendered is the correct amount for tax purposes, not the value of services received.
So, you went with another coach after the first coach canceled 6 lessons in a row. Did you pay the 2nd coach for the lessons? Or did you assume that the 1st coach would pay the 2nd coach as part of the quid pro quo?
I suppose I’m overly optimistic*, but here goes…
What did the engagement agreement specify would be provided?
And what does the coach say about the invoices that were delivered, indicating that the services had been paid by barter?
Have you asked your husband’s E&O insurance provider what they recommend?
- Optimistic because, even though I can’t imagine an accountant of any sort doing work without all three of these items, it sounds like you probably don’t have them.
If you have those things, then the issues of fraud and payment are not real issues. The only legal issue to pursue is the coach’s harassment/slander. A restraining order might be what you want.
Yeah, I definitely wouldn’t do this. It puts the tennis coach in the catbird seat. He has exactly what he wants – money from the accountant – without the accountant getting anything. If the accountant wants to get his money back, or get paid for the services rendered (if my feeble brain remembers correctly, that’s quantum meruit), he has to sue and then enforce the judgment. Neither of which is fun.
It is fun to think about sending an invoice, though, with the setoff for the cost of the tennis lessons…
Well, IMHO, you’re pretty clearly legally in the right. (But if you had a written agreement with the coach, I’d send him a copy, along with documentation of your husband’s work to fulfill his end of the contract, using registered mail. Couldn’t hurt).
But what I think you should be worried about it what he’s saying about you. I’d talk to the tennis center, and try and find out whether they know this guy is crazy or not, and proceed cautiously from there.