Counter-Suit Filed in a Small Claims Case
My question involves small claims court in the state of: Louisiana
This is my first time to ever file a claim against someone, and the first time to use a forum like this, so I apologize for the long post, but I wanted to include as much detail about the case as possible in hopes of getting some solid advice...
My wife and I started a business 6 years ago (online business). The business grew beyond belief, so last year (Aug 2007), we hired a local man to design us a new website and write a custom software application for the business. When he made some progress on the website, I paid him $200. When he made more progress on the custom application, I paid him another $400. There was never a written contract, we only did business via email and over the phone, and we never discussed a final value of what the project would cost - I simply told him that as long as he was doing a good job, I would continue to pay him for his time and what he was doing... In Feb or Mar of 2008, we discovered that he was using the inside information we were giving him (so that he could design the application to our needs) to not only start a competing business of his own, but he also went to see our clients and tried to get them to drop us and go with his new found company. When we confronted him, he denied it at first, but then we caught him on 3 occasions engaged in competitive activities against our company.
Also, this person works in the IT department of a public utility company (the power company), and was engaged in these competitive actions in his work uniform, and in his work vehicle, on company time. After we caught him in the act, I called his supervisor and asked to meet with him at a local restaurant, where I explained everything that was happening. I did this because I was afraid, as a customer of that power company, that he would use his position to do something to us. His supervisor assured me he had no access to customer records, and that he would make a note of it all, and he thanked me for letting him know about it. Shortly after this meeting, we received an email from the guy - a very angry one, telling me that I had really messed up and that I had caused a bunch of trouble for him at work because of an investigation they were doing of him...
When we confronted him by email and by phone (before we caught him in the act), he wrote us a long email stating that he wanted to continue to work on our project, but he needed written assurance that we weren't doing anything illegal or unethical. Before we knew for sure that it was him doing this, I wrote him another email back and gave him the assurance he wanted. I assured him that nothing we were doing was illegal or unethical in any way - our clients had asked us to keep our dealings confidential, but not because it was unethical, because it would cause them alot of headache and grief if they had to deal with alot of phone calls and such. So, the only person I told whom I was doing business with was this guy that needed to know names so he could design this application. After I sent him this written assurance, his next email told me that he couldn't sleep over worrying about it and the fact that I had mentioned to him that the person doing this to us was seen wearing his company uniform, and in a company vehicle. He went on to say that he no longer wanted to do business with us as a result of this... Within a few weeks, we caught him "red handed" engaged in competitive actions. Within a short time, we were able to find his user ID he was selling under in the online market we were using, so we bookmarked his user ID so we could watch his listings. A part of that user ID shows the persons' address they have listed... The second time we caught him in the act, I was there and became very upset. I did call him every name in the book, and even made up some new ones, but I never laid a hand on him - I wanted to, but I did not touch him, I only cursed him. When he left, I apologized to the people at this location for loosing my temper, and we were allowed to finish what we were doing, then left. About 2 weeks later, we see him again at another location (public), and he approaches me and tries to hand me some folded up papers. I refused to take them unless it was a refund check, so he threw them down in front of me and told me "You're gonna need 'em, buddy." So, after he left, I picked up the papers and discovered that he had filed a police report and made a photo copy of an envelope from a lawyers' office, and a business card from someone at the peace bond office. The following Monday, I went to the police station to see what it was about, and he had filed a simple assault charge on me, and made the statement that I had touched him in some way, which was a lie. I also went to see the person whose business card he photo copied, and she became very upset with this guy for passing it off the way he did, and told me he had started to file a peace bond against me, but never did - he just wasted their time. She wanted to go and file charges against him for filing a false police report, and for passing this home-made document off as a legal paper...
We decided to write him a formal letter and make a written request for our money back. When we looked on his user ID online, the address had changed to something different, so I made 2 copies of the letter I wrote and sent one by certified mail to each address I had for him. I then went to see an attorney in town, and he told me that I did not have a damages case against him since there was no real damage - our clients did not drop us, so we never really lost anything. But, he suggested that we file a small claims suit. My wife and I talked it over for a while, then decided to go ahead and file it against him for the money we paid him to do this job. Back when we discovered all of this, we locked him out of our web server account and the other places he had access to. He told us that he removed our access to the application he was building because our web server didn't support PHP cron jobs, and that he had worked for many hours trying to make it work but couldn't. So, the application we had paid for was now gone, and then I discovered that the background picture he used for our website was actually a copyrighted picture - it would be illegal for me to keep using it, so now the website has to be completely re-designed. So, basically, we paid him for nothing.
When I filed the suit, I gave them his home address to serve him. They tried for over 1 month to serve him at home, but never could get him to answer the door. I then went back to the court and filed to have service done at his place of employment. I first called his supervisor and asked if this would be OK, and explained that we were having to sue him because of everything that had happened. He told me it would be fine to have service done there, so I paid to have the address changed, and they were able to serve him at work... We then get an email from him - again, very angry, and this time he said that he was going to take me down, and that his in-laws, his employer, and his own family were terrified of me and that we must be stalking them. He went on to say that "as a Christian, I didn't want to involve your children, but oh well...". I realize that he probably meant he was going to take me down financially, but the way this was worded got me a little worried, and actually sounds like a threat against my family. So, I did let the police know about it, but the police in the small town where I live just blew it off and told me what he must have meant...
Shortly after I filed the suit, I received a letter from an attorney that told me I had to drop the suit, else this guy had authorized him to file libel against me because I continually harassed him at work, and went on to mention that his family was terrified because I had sent a letter to his in-laws home (that was the address he changed on his user ID), and that I must be stalking them. The letter went on to say that instead of him owing us a refund, he was going to sue us for more than $2500 for work he performed and was never paid for... I wrote the attorney back and sent him a copy of the emails and other evidence I had, and shortly thereafter, the attorney told me that this guy was looking to settle out of court. So, as a show of good faith, I postponed the court date, but I did not drop the case because I wanted to see what kind of terms he wanted to settle for. I agreed that I would settle for 50% of our money back, and a written & signed contract from him that he would leave our clients alone and not try to approach them anymore, and I even named the clients. A couple of weeks went by, and after continually emailing this lawyer, I never could get any kind of response. I told him if I didn't hear anything back, that I was going to go ahead and reschedule the court date, which I did.
Now, it appears that he has filed a counter-suit against me to the small claims case I filed against him. So, my question is, what should I do at this point? How can I be the most prepared when I do go to court? Should I look to have witnesses against this guy? One of my friends called me and told me that he had asked him to write a statement that really had nothing to do with the issue at hand - he wanted him to state that I had told him all about my wife's business, and now I was trying to say that it was supposed to be all a secret. And that's not true - I told him that I wanted to keep my dealings with clients confidential, not the fact that she has a business. Anyway, the friend doesn't want to be involved, and even told him he wasn't going to write the statement, and this guy told him he was going to subpoenae him to write it anyway. So another question I have is this: can he subponae people to show up in court? Can he subponae one of our clients? If he does, and that client decides to leave us, can we get him for damages at that point?
Any and all advice would be helpful...
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