A catering contract to celebrate Black Heritage Month turned into a tough lesson for a Black-owned bakery in the South Bay earlier this month.

Two days after taking a job for Tesla, owner of The Giving Pies got a simple text message canceling the order

A catering contract to celebrate Black Heritage Month turned into a tough lesson for a Black-owned bakery in the South Bay earlier this month.

What started as a $16,000 deal ended up costing the small business owner thousands of dollars instead.

On Valentine’s Day, the owner of The Giving Pies in San Jose’s Willow Glen neighborhood received a pretty sweet call from a representative with Tesla: a catering job for thousands of mini-pies for a Black History Month event.

Owner Voahangy Rasetarinera, who started the business out of her home in 2017, says both sides agreed on a quote and exchanged an invoice for 4,000 pies for delivery this week. Because of the tight turnaround, Rasetarinera asked staff to work extra hours, she bought ingredients and packaging supplies and declined at least three other catering jobs.

  • KevonLooney@lemm.ee
    15·
    9 months ago

    I don’t think you can bring a lawyer to small claims court, to prevent this exact scenario. Tesla might send a manager or nobody. They can’t send their legal team.

    • Nollij@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      13·
      9 months ago

      Who Can File or Defend a Claim?

      Corporation or other legal entity — A corporation or other legal entity (that is not a natural person) can be represented by a regular employee, an officer, or a director; a partnership can be represented by a partner or regular employee of the partnership. The representative may not be an attorney or person whose only job is to represent the party in small claims court.

      Source

      • KevonLooney@lemm.ee
        4·
        9 months ago

        You can’t sue for the whole amount if you don’t actually deliver the items. Unless the contract specifically states the entire amount is non-refundable.

        You don’t have a right to the profit, but you could probably get your costs and labor back. It might be easy. They might not even show up.

    • snooggums@midwest.socialEnglish
      1·
      9 months ago

      I wasn’t even thinking of small claims court since I thought the cap was only a few thousand dollars (depending on location), but that is good to know.