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It amazes me just how many folks will buy a product or service and never read the small print.
If there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that contracts are not written for the consumer, they’re written for the company.
Let’s say I do some work for you and hand you a contract with a bold font stating what the fee is, but I hide somewhere in the small print that I also want your vehicle. It’s also been added that I want a bag of cheese puffs on the first day of each month for the rest of my life. If you sign it, I get my fee, your vehicle and cheese puffs
for life. It’s a win for me, not you.
Before I sign anything I let the person know that I’m gonna read all the small print. After their eyes finish rolling to the back of their heads and they look at their watch, they usually leave the room for a while so I can start reading.
I highlight the things I want explained and am usually interrupted several times during the process asking me if I’m finished yet.
My husband is used to this, as I did the same thing to him while he waited patiently for me to read the wedding vows he wrote for me. I know the minister had another wedding to do, but I had to be sure.
If you fail to honor a contract, you could end up in a courtroom with more paperwork to read and judges frowning on your asking them to wait while you browse the fine print.
Things aren’t what they used to be, as numerous pages of reading material have replaced the trusty handshake.
I recently came up on the lemonade stand of a 7-year-old who wanted me to sign a disclaimer before handing me a frosty beverage, for cryin’ out loud.
I signed it because it was hot and thirsty, but I had her sign one that I quickly devised revoking her contract in its entirety. She signed mine as well, but I think she was too busy looking at the pretty pink pony I drew on the contract, to read the small print – so I win.
Often by a contract statement, there will be a number so small that even the Hubble telescope would have trouble focusing on it. That number has a note attached to it that basically insinuates – you lose.
Everyone should read the small print. I even read the tiny statements on toilet paper packages because ya just never know.
A friend of mine failed to take my reading advice and ended up signing a contract that stated they could use her photo likeness. She assumed it was a one-time use ... it was for a lifetime.
Her image has been seen in underwear, hair removal and chicken feed ads.
After going to court and spending lots of money, the judge ruled against her because she signed the contract. Ignorance is not a defense.
She walked out of the courtroom only to see her face on a billboard across the street advertising tongue-scraping devices. She gets no royalties, either, from anything because that was not in the contract.
Mitigation is a way of trying to settle a contract dispute without going to court or a jury trial. If a company decides to go that route, it’s written in tiny print somewhere in the paperwork, ya just gotta find it, kinda like the “Where’s Waldo?” of the legal world.
In some cases, it may be necessary to hire an attorney to help you decifer the legalities of it all.
I always present my attorney with a contract to sign before helping me that states he must help me in layman’s terms. Because it’s a contract. I have managed to turn one statement into three pages, but he doesn’t seem to mind.
Anngee Quinones-Belian lives in Murphy. She loves humor and believes the world needs more of it. Email her at anngeeq@gmail.com.