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Posted By: warshawlaw

I represent a lot of contractors, tradesmen and post-production facilities in the motion picture industry. I have sued a good number of very wealthy, "powerful", famous people. Just because the amounts in question are small potatoes to them doesn't mean that they don't go out of their way to try and keep what isn't theirs. It often seems that many of these people see it as a power trip to force a contractor to eat his bill, consider themselves to be hardball negotiators with a reputation that requires them to try it, or are just bent on proving that they will pay their creditors when they damned well please because they are big, important people in control of things. Right now I am wrapping up a case involving a major record company executive who cheated his contractor out of under $25,000 for his mansion remodel. I've had to pursue collections for clients who've done special effects on Oscar-winning films and are still denied their contracted-for fees on those films because the producer gets pissed off over some supposed personal slight or just wants to flex his muscles and prove he can force the contractor to eat **it. That a wealthy collector would gyp Ryan on a relatively small deal is by no means far-fetched. Ryan's situation sounds like a power play; the big, rich customer will pay when he feels like it, not when the merchant rightfully demands it.