I met with the bride & groom and went over everything...and they gave me a list of songs written on a restaurant napkin (where we met to go over the details)...and I asked them if there were any songs on this list that were important to their event...and they both said 'NO'.
And I also said to them, since we are less than a week from your event that if there is ANY song that you absolutely need...you need to provide me with the CD...to which they 'agreed'!
I had probably 2/3rds of the songs on their list...and the gig went off without a hitch!
Until six months later when I received a subpoena from small claims court that I was being sued for not having one song on a list of over 200 songs listed on a restaurant napkin!
You kind of set your self up for this by not having a written policy in the contract regarding
content discretion. Obviously this bride was hell bent on getting post wedding discounts by exploiting her vendors anywhere she could. It's unlikely you were the only one on her hit list. She may have even used the case to fulfill a homework "case" assignment that was supposed to be fictitious.
Here's the thing: If we allow a consumer to represent the transaction in any way to a
list of things to be performed - then our contract becomes one of
adhesion benefiting the consumer's discretion rather than our own.
As for the judge's point of view: she gave you a song list in writing, and while you verbally told her she needed to provide you with any songs on that list you didn't have - you haven't indicated any followup request for songs or written notice of the tracks you couldn't provide.
In the judges view - that missing step is cause for a consumer's reasonable assumption that you had resolved the music issues on your own. Had you presented a copy of urgent communication conveying otherwise, with a list of tracks tracks to be provided by the client, you might have easily prevailed.
I generally went out of my way to make sure I had EVERY track on someone's list - even if they had said they would bring their own CD or file. But my contract also has a content provision that reserves the
right to refuse play of content deemed to be offensive, inappropriate, or otherwise content indeterminable. It further reserves the right of refusal and final content decisions to the DJ.
While this bride seems to have been a straight-up opportunist, there are all kinds of due diligence issues we have to stay aware of - for example: a customer supplied first dance song that unexpectedly turns out to be highly explicit, blank, corrupted, or the wrong track altogether?. Who's responsible for pre-screening and verifying client provided content?
