Construction Litigation Attorney Collects Bad Debt

Sometimes even when you have done everything right, your customer “finds” a “reason” not to pay you. That happened to one of our clients when it delivered $42,000.00 of concrete to a job site. The customer admitted owing twenty grand. Yet, he refused to pay anything unless our client walked away from the remaining $22,000.00 balance. Months passed without payment. Unwilling to give up what was rightfully his, the client called the Law Offices of Alan M. Cohen LLC and we commenced construction litigation.

We promptly sued. The customer counter-claimed seeking $70,000.00 from our client. After the parties did discovery, we convinced the other attorney to agree to non-binding mediation. After almost five hours of mediation, the customer relented, agreeing to pay our client all of the principal and a healthy amount of interest and gave up its $70,000.00 counterclaim.

Final score: Our client — $50,000.00, Debtor — Zippo!