Consumer Law, Warranties I am a designer and I have a long term client who just abruptly fired me.

[tilunanda]

I am a web & print designer and I have a long term client (8 years!) who abruptly fired me last week. We have a contract that does not end until August 2009 which includes a list of expected projects and estimated fees. It also has a clause that very clearly states that 30 days written notice must be given for either party to severe the contract. This is not what happened.

What happened was this: I was working under deadline over the holidays to get them the first drafts of three separate booklets on Jan 5. I managed to get that done and was then told that I would be receiving a new set of design guidelines to apply to the booklets. This made me very irritated and I got sort of annoyed with the assistant who was calling to inform me of this. (I realized once I got off the phone that it wasn't her fault at all and promptly sent her an apology.) I wasn't mean or threatening, just incredibly annoyed. Anyway, at the end of the day, I received a phone call from the head of the organization informing me that my services were no longer required.

Now I have been sent emails saying that they expect all my native editable design files from the last 8 years as well as the editable files I was working on. As I understand it, those working files are my intellectual property. There is nothing in our contract stating that they have any ownership of them. They are asking that the files to be ready Monday for a courier to pick up.

I am assuming that I have some sort of legal recourse here and that I should at the very least expect to be paid in full for outstanding invoices (about $2000). I would be willing to let them have the native files for a fee (half of what it cost to produce each one?)

Questions:
- How do I make sure I am paid ?
- Can I ask for compensation for the broken contract and expected income that will be lost?
- Do I have to give them my native files for free or is that my IP and thus something for which I can negotiate a fee?

 

[dee_dub]

- How do I make sure I am paid ?

If the invoices aren't paid by the due date, you send them a demand letter, and if they don't pay, you sue in small claims court.

Can I ask for compensation for the broken contract and expected income that will be lost?

You can ask. It strikes me as unlikely that the ex-client would pay those voluntarily unless you can convince them that they are contractually bound to pay them. If you have to sue, you can sue for those, and you'll have to convince a judge that they are contractually bound to pay them. Without knowing the terms of the contract or the circumstances of your business relationship, it is impossible to say whether you will succeed.

- Do I have to give them my native files for free or is that my IP and thus something for which I can negotiate a fee?

You should post that in the Intellectual Property - Copyright forum. Or browse through some of the posts there - there are some dealing with the issue of an independent contractor's rights in the material they create for their employer. Generally, freelance creators own the copyright in their creation. I'm not sure of the status of your "native files". You could argue that since these aren't spoken of in the contract at all, they are not deliverables and the company has no right to them whatsoever.