Who Should You be Suing

Last week, I discussed how important it is to make sure you had the right name for the person that you are suing.  Before you figure out the right name though, you should make sure that you are suing the right person!

You may think it sounds silly, but it is a common mistake for people to sue the wrong person.  Let's use an example:

You hire a general contractor, ABC Contracting Inc. to do some renovations to your house.  The person you deal with at ABC is Jim Carpenter.  ABC hires Bob?s Plumbing to do the plumbing work on the renovations.  The employee of Bob?s Plumbing that did the work is Bill Fawcett.

You discover that the plumbing is leaking and is badly done.  You call Bill, who tells you to call Jim.  Jim tells you to call Bill.  Neither will fix it and you have to sue.

Who do you sue?

Most people will sue Bill, Bob?s Plumbing, Jim, and ABC.  This isn?t a good idea.  In these circumstances, your best bet is to sue the person with whom you had a contract.  That ?person? is ABC Contracting Inc.  (Companies are legal persons.)

Don?t sue Jim, because you did not have a contract with Jim.  He was merely the contact for ABC.  Even though Bob?s Plumbing was the company that did the work, you did not have a contract with Bob?s, so don?t sue Bob?s either.  Bill, even though he did the work, doesn?t have a contract with you.  You should probably not sue him either.

This is how it works: You have a contract with ABC. So, you sue ABC.  If ABC thinks that the bad job is the fault of Bob?s, ABC can sue Bob?s.  Bob?s might think that Bill should have to pay for the bad job, so Bob?s might sue Bill.  None of that concerns you.  You only care about getting money from ABC.

It sounds complicated, but the rule makes sense.  You only get to sue the people with whom you have a relationship.  You paid money to ABC and ABC got money from you.  Therefore, ABC is the party that you have to sue.

People that represent themselves in court often get frustrated and angry because they do not understand that they have named the wrong party.  If you name the wrong party, that party will likely go to court before the trial and ask the court to throw out the claim against them.  When you are in court that day, you will not get an opportunity to tell your whole story.  The only issue the judge cares about is whether you have named the right party.  This can be very frustrating.

Make sure that you know who you should be suing.  Naming the wrong party will cost you money, delay the lawsuit, take up more of your time going to court and is generally inconvenient.