In 2012, I started writing, on a freelance basis, blog posts for a company. The arrangement was that I would write one post per day, which would be posted in the morning, and after the Friday post, I would send by e-mail an invoice for the preceding week’s work, which they would pay, generally that day or the following Monday; there were one or two blips where I would get nothing one week and two payments the next.
The friend who had recommended me for the work had been employed there when I started, but resigned effective February 27th, 2015.
Around November of 2013, they stopped paying me. I continued writing, and every four to six weeks, they would pay me for two or three weeks of work. This went on, with me being increasingly insistent in my collection efforts, but without them catching up. On February 20th, 2015, I made my last post; I never formally quit, but I haven’t posted anything since then. At that point, I had received no payments in six weeks, and they were 32 weeks in arrears. I have since been paid once more, in the first week of March, well under what they owed me at that time, after sending a slew of e-mails. A handful of subsequent volleys have been met with no response of any sort. As far as I know, no further blog posts have been made by anybody.
At this point, I figure either:
[ol]
[li]They are too disorganized or inept to send me payment or too impecunious to provide it, or[/li][li]They have made the deliberate decision to not pay money they recognize they owe me, or[/li][li]They have (or believe they have) determined some reason they do not or should not have to pay me.[/li][/ol]
If it is the first or second, and I sue, I assume I will win. That will, respectively, either light a fire under their ass to work something out, or give me some force behind my efforts to collect.
The third is what concerns me. If I sue, and lose, they will owe me nothing. That will put me in a worse position, if only metaphysically. To the best of my knowledge, there is no reason I’m not owed the money. They certainly haven’t said anything to me.
It’s a small enough amount to constitute a small claim (I looked it up), so legal fees aren’t an issue. So my decision whether or not to sue, as I see it, hinges on two questions. First, how likely is it that, if they believe there is a reason they don’t or shouldn’t have to pay me, they would choose to ignore my invoices rather than tell me what this reason is? Second, if they actually do have a reason, will the fact that they never told me anythiing help my case at all, and what if anything can I do to increase the degree to which it helps? There may also be additional factors I haven’t considered.
I live, and the company is headquartered, in New York State.