The Wacky Caterer

Part 1

(story is true - names are changed)

The angriest person I ever encountered was in Bronx Small Claims Court. Luz Calderon had made the unfortunate decision to do one stop wedding shopping with my client, Banderas Wedding Center (Juan Banderas, President). Juan’s business model was to take his modest catering operation, and expand it into a Walmart of wedding services. At Banderas Wedding Center, you could get your invitations, wedding gown, bridesmaid dresses, tuxedos, photos, videos, limos, honeymoon, band, rings, and anything else needed for that special day...on a tight budget. He was a general contractor for nuptials, using a hapless collection of cretinous subcontractors.

I don’t know how the food was at Luz’ wedding. All I knew was she hadn’t received her wedding pictures and she was not happy. When Juan first came to my office he told me he had some “small problems.” He showed me six different small claims cases, three Civil Court cases, one Supreme Court case, and a friendly letter from the New York State Attorney General. Luz Calderon’s case was the fourth time I’d gone to court for Juan. Before I went to the Bronx on Calderon v Banderas, I asked him what happened to Luz’s wedding pictures. He said, “the photographer has them.”
Prompting me to ask, “why doesn’t Luz have them?”
“Well, the photographer wants to be paid.”
“Why don’t you pay him?”
“Well, he wants to be paid on this job, AND all the other jobs.”

After some more prompting, I learned that Banderas owed ALL his subcontractors, and they were all taking the same position: no piecemeal payments. Pay in full, or we hold hostages.

Wedding photos were powerful hostages, since the customers desperately wanted them, but this was not prompting Banderas to pay for their release. He had a pretty good reason, which many a client has stated over the years: “I don’t have the money.” He had small amounts of money - enough to pay me to go to court and defend him “as best as you can.” Sometimes he didn’t even come with me. It was me against the embittered brides.

Luz told the Judge her story. I told the Judge my client’s story, such as it was. The Judge wanted to talk to my client, but I had to tell the Judge he “couldn’t make it” that night. The Judge told Luz she would win her case, such as it was, meaning she would get a judgment which might not be so easy to collect. The Judge wanted to talk to me privately at a side bar, off the record. When I approached he whispered, “what kind of piece of shit, moron, asshole of a client do you have here?”

I wanted to say, “all of the above,” but instead I said, “I’m just trying to represent my client the best I can, and I realize he is going to lose this case, but there is a problem in the business.” The Judge asked me what I thought the problem was, and it boiled down to this: The business had all kinds of claims against it, no money to pay, and the second any money came in, various creditors were grabbing it. The Judge then said, “you can’t keep representing him in these individual cases, you’ll end up on one of those consumer fraud TV news shows. This client should file for bankruptcy.”

Upcoming in Part 2 - The Wacky Caterer Files for Bankruptcy