I am geting ready to sue the company that hosted my wedding reception and was hoping to get some thoughts & feedback from the Fatwallet community.

Basic Facts

When I arrived to the reception, there was no power in the building. All other buildings in the vicinity had power. There were no electrical storms in the area. Power was off for 4 out of the 5 hours of my reception. The staff had no explanation, nor did they have any contigency plan for any such event. As a result:

- the professional photographer that I hired, was limited in the types of pictures he could take. By his own admission, the photographer said we would have had better photographs if the lights were on.
- I spent about $50 out of pocket for batteries and candles
- I had one guest who just left the hospital and was unable to climb the 4 flights of stairs to go to my reception (we were relying on a working elevator). The guest drove to the reception, waited for about 2 hours downstairs for power to come on, then went home
- A drink machine that I had rented went unused (no power).
- Video equipment that I had rented to show a slidewhow.....went unused.
- We were without a DJ for about 2 hours (they did eventually run an extension cord from another building). So I paid for another service that we couldn't use.
- Many of my guests did not receive the reduced rate parking voucher (parking for the event was next door and the staff was supposed to hand out vouchers to my guests....but that did not happen. The staff was running around trying to figure out what to do)
- One of my groomsmen called the local TV news. The local news did send a crew to the reception and came upstairs to shoot some footage. When the lights came back on, the crew wanted to re-enter the building to take some more shots, but management refused to let them in. They claimed that it was a private event and that they were uninvited guests. I'm sorry, but they were invited guests and the person who was hosting the party (me) certainly wanted them there. So in essence, they turned away invited guests.

There are many other aspects that sucked because of the lack of power, I am just trying to limit this post to items that might be factored into a court case.

As it turns out, the power outage was caused by a faulty Power Company line that was between the utility pole and the power supply room within the reception building. I am not certain as to legal precedence in this manner, but from my viewpoint:
I had a contract with the reception company to provide a service (which should have included power). That service was not provided. Even tough it was not the reception companies equipment that failed, it was one of the reception companies subcontractors. The reception company could have had a back-up generator but they made a business decision to not have a back-up generator. The power failure was not an act of god, but an equipment failure on the part of the reception companies subcontrator. I am suing for breach of contract and want a full refund for the price I paid, plus the cost of the items I paid for that went unused....and the $50 I paid for batteries and candles.

I did try to settle this matter with the company by other means (phone calls & Better Business Bureau), but the company offered me nothing (not 100% true, they offered me a free nights stay at one of their inns....I have no desire to stay at their inn). Their take, it was an act of God (appearantly the owner never took a business law class), they did everythig possible and we still used the room.

I think the biggest question for me.....is my logic in assuming that the power company is a subcontractor to the reception company valid?

Thanks for your thoughts

6/17/08 Update
Thank you to everyone who provided information on this situation. My court case was yesterday and technically speaking, I was a winner. The judge found in favor of the plaintiff for $500. It was not a full refund of the rental fee ($2750) and out of pocket expenses that I was seeking, but better than nothing. Some things I learned in process:

- In Baltimore City, small claims court works like traffic court in that several cases are scheduled for the same time. I had to sit through lots of cases to get to mine.

- In order to allow video evidence into a trial, you are supposed to petition the court beforehand (the fact that I could not play my video had no bearing on my case and if necassary, I believe I would have been allowed to introduce the video evidence.)

- Verdict appears to depend alot on the mood of the judge, not necasarily the facts.

- I think the judge is probably more interested in clearing the dockett than ensuring justice is served.

To try to put this in nutshell, the judge took the stance that since it was BGEs (power company) failure and since the ballroom didnt do anything wrong, the ballroom should not be held liable. The fact that I did nothing wrong and got screwed over appearantly doesn't count. If the judge had stated that it was a case of Force Majeure and perhaps gave some legal reference, I may have felt comfortable with her stance/ruling, but honestly I don't think that was her rationale....it was simply, they didn't do anything wrong, so they aren't liable.

I was able to prove that the ballroom was negligent in that they did not call BGE immediately to report the outage, it took the ballroom almost an hour (that's why I got $500). Additionally, the power in my building was not restored immediately once BGE had finished repairs. I was able to prove this with records from BGE showing the times of the outage and compare them to witness and video (not used in the hearing, but had it there) testimony. I hate to say it, but I almost didn't even win this point. To paraphrase the judges words "There seems to be inconsitencies with what BGE is reporting and the times that you (me) are reporting (yes, that is my point). How do we really know that these BGE reports are accurate? (was there evidence presented to call into question the credibility of BGE....NO!) I was dumbfounded and almost didn't know how to respond. BGE opened a ticket when the call was recived at 7:08pm, I had witnesses who all reported the power going out at 6:15pm....I really didn't think the path was that hard to follow. Additionally, I have video and audio evidence to show that power came back on at 9:35pm, almost a full hour after BGE reports finishing the repair. We went round and round on this a few times until I finally asked "what other evidence could I have provided today to show when the outage was reported to BGE and when they finished their work? Is there any reason to doubt that these reports are wrong?"

I have 10 days (9 now) to file an appeal and would gladly do so if I could find some case in MD that set a precednet going the other way. I ask again.....anyone have access to do the research?

When I get a chance, I will post the contract (so you can see how pathetic and invalid it was) and if you are lucky, I might post some picks from the reception. If I can get someone to provide ammo (precednet) for an appeal, I'll post the news clip that ran the night of my reception.

Thanks to all who helped. It was a interesting learning experience, one I would do all over again.

Are you filing this pro se in small claims court?

Oh and one last thing, you'll get better advice from a legal forum, not a financial forum.

There are most definitely clauses in your contract that state that "issues" like this may happen that are beyond their control.

Doesn't mean you still can't sue. And I wouldn't even deal with small claims. This is a wedding and I would go for the gusto on this one. They have insurance for a reason. Get a good lawyer.

Did you buy any third-party insurance by any chance?

[edit] Did you follow up with the local TV show contacts? They may find this a very interesting story for the "consumer watch department."

did you pay by CC?

OP, I am very sorry to hear about the ruined reception but very much hope that you didn't let it get to you and still managed to have loads of fun. Regardless, though, you are absolutely right to seek compensation and I wish you the best of luck here.

As for your specific questions, as much as all of us would like to help you, unfortunately your situation is too fact specific for us to provide you with any guidance in this case. Your state law as well as the existence and the absence of certain contractual obligations, covenants, indemnifications and disclaimers will have tremendous influence on the viability of your case. Consequently, to the extent that you are going to get specific responses to your questions on the Internet, the replies are much more likely to mislead than to help.

You really do need a good attorney to help you here. I am sure you already know this, but try to stay away from selecting one based on the yellow pages, billboards and tv/radio ads. Instead, ask people that would be in the position to differentiate between good, solid attorneys and bottom feeders to help you. This isn't a particularly complicated case, so you don't need the best attorney in the country. An attorney with a lot of credibility with the other side would be quite helpful, however.

P.S.
I've just been asked to elaborate a bit on my post. Depending on the exact wording of the contract and the applicable case law in OP’s state, an unexpected power outage may or may not constitute a force majure event. Even if it does constitute such an event, however, depending on the precise wording of the contract the OP's damages may or may not be limited. Hence, my advice to consult a knowledgeable and credible lawyer who would be in the position to evaluate the OP's facts in the context of applicable law.

Whatever happens, throw a heck of an anniversary party next year somewhere else.

gumbydamnit said:- I spent about $50 out of pocket for batteries and candlesWith my wife, that always makes for a romantic night.

What you need to do right now is the following:

1) Realize you can obtain reasonable attorney's fees as part of your suit (so the cost of a lawyer isn't an issue)
2) Stop asking questions here, and ask the lawyer. All these questions are things a good lawyer will answer or be able to do to you.

All that will happen here is a) people will tell you to get a lawyer, or b) some perry mason will give you advice that will be incomplete/not helpful/detrimental

Summary
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Find the name of some lawyers, figure out which one you want to go with, and start your work.