Legal Question in Civil Rights Law in Minnesota
Breach Verbal Agreement
Last summer I spent several hundred hours helping the neighbors build an addition on their house. Him and his spouse agreed to help my girlfriend and I at our house the following summer doing various projects (relaying the back patio, new kitchen cabinets, etc.) if we helped them on their addition. I developed a disabling neuroskeletal disorder last fall and had to stop helping the neighbor, although we were to the point of the finishing details on the addition. Since my disability the neighbors want nothing to do with us and have made it clear that they were only using us and never planned on helping us out as agreed. They have kept several of my tools and have broken our agreement that will now end up costing me several thousand dollars to hire someone to help with my house projects. Is this something that can be cleared up in the legal system?
Thank you for your time.
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: Breach Verbal Agreement
Several hundred hours out of the goodness of your heart is an awful lot of work not to get some sort of agreement in writing.
It is doubtful whether you can enforce an oral contract for services, but you might be able to recoup the value of your services to your neighbor.
You will definitley need some way to substantiate your work, and one way is to start listing everything that you did; another is to get other naighbors to attest to your on-going work. It would be pretty hard to deny your involvement, since you would have detailed, intimate descriptions of work you performed.
The only question is whether the promise to help your neighbor plus your fulfilling your side of the bargain in reliance upon that promise sufficient to create an enforceable contract. It very possibly is, but you'll need specific legal guidance on this one from your state codes.
It would be an interesting case, so go see a lawyer in your area. it will be a hard one to get on contingency fee basis, but at the least, you should be willing to pay someone to research the question and give you an educated guess as to whether you can get a judge to hear you out.
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