Dancing With The Stars Mark Ballas Headed To Small Claims Court
I wonder what will happen with this case? According to TMZ, Mark is headed to small claims court. Apparently, he’s being accused of firing his ex-publicist and not paying. Read more below.
Ballas has just been hit with a summons to appear in L.A. County Small Claims Court — because Ace PR claims the “Dancing with the Stars” pro never forked over $2,637.75 he owed the company after he fired them back in September.
According to legal docs, obtained by TMZ, Ace claims Ballas agreed to pay them a “30 day termination fee” when he signed his contract … which is basically severance pay.
But sources close to Ballas tell us … the dancer believes he doesn’t owe Ace a dime, because they breached the contract by doing such a terrible job.
Ballas and Ace PR are set to face off in small claims court on July 8.
If he signed a contract as such, he’s probably going to have to pay whether they did a terrible job or not. What a thing to have in a contract anyway. Also, has Mark thought that maybe it’s not them that did a terrible job? A lot rides on the talent and if people like it or not too, right?
(Heidi’s Note: Well, talent doesn’t matter one iota in this case. Both parties signed a contract. If the contract says they’re owed severance and they DIDN’T void the contract by not doing the job, then Mark has to pay. Mark doesn’t get to just say they voided the contract -there has to be a clause in there that describes what “voiding” means and he has to prove they did it. If he can prove they did a crappy job per the contract, which strikes me as difficult indeed, then they are out of luck. Up for the judge to decide.)
Agree with you Heidi. Looks like Mark is out $2637.75 plus whatever court costs the judge might assess
I’m curious as to what Mark’s definition of “a terrible job” is. Is it “I’m not uber-famous yet, so you must be doing something wrong”? If that’s the case – hehe. Sorry Marky – a good publicist can only do so much with a mediocre music talent. But if this publicist did indeed do a terrible job (and that’s the generally accepted definition of “terrible job”, and not just Mark’s), the burden of proof is on Mark – and it’s such a subjective thing to prove, since I’m guessing paperwork isn’t always indicative of the quality of work one is doing. It sure sounds like a lot of work for not much of a guarantee of payoff. If I were Mark, I’d just save face (and time, and effort) and fork over the money now.
I agree Court – it would be extremely difficult to prove someone did a bad job, especially if they tracked their efforts on his behalf. I’m sure there are probably time logs, and records of them badgering magazines, etc. to include him, and so on. If they didn’t have all that, they wouldn’t bother to sue.
Mark should just pay the the money. It’s a relatively small sum compared to the cost of a days wages combined with court costs and legal fees.
Often times it is just cheaper to pay–even if you are in the right.