Wedding photographer sued $22,000 for breaching contract

Typically, part of being a professional wedding photographer involves delivering a service and a product to clients. And there’s usually a contract outlining everyone’s obligations. However, a photographer in British Columbia, Canada, has been ordered to pay a couple more than $22,000 after failing to deliver photos six years after the wedding. The judge presiding over the case stated that the photographer’s excuses were “lame”, and that the photographer, Aman Bal, had breached the contract and “seemed to be literally making up these excuses in the spur of the moment on the stand”. Full details of the case can be found at this link.

As reported on CBC, the couple commissioned Bal in 2015, paying $8,500. Bal, who’s been a professional photographer for over 15 years, had been contracted to deliver photo albums, thank you cards, digital guest books, metallic prints, Blu-ray disks, and a DVD of all the pictures taken. At least five other couple have launched legal action again Bal since 2011.

In her judgement, the judge concluded: “"All of the evidence in this case, including Mr. Bal's slippery testimony, leads me to the inescapable inference that Mr. Bal's behaviour is almost a modus operandi for Mr. Bal's business — a pattern of deceitful behaviour that frustrates innocent people to the extreme that they just give up and walk away with whatever they can get back from Mr. Bal.”

As a result of the breach of contract, Bal was ordered to pay $7,000 to replace the items he failed to deliver, $5,000 for punitive damages, $10,000 for mental distress, and $236 for court fees.

Get more stories like this delivered
free to your inbox. Sign up here.