Mariachis–Different band than hired showed up…Contract broken?
Question by Shelley: Mariachis–Different band than hired showed up…Contract broken?
I just had a big party and hired a mariachi group through a booking agent who works with several mariachi groups and their managers. I specified that I wanted an all-female group. The process was fairly simple: He found me a group (all women), sent me a contract, I signed it, paid a $ 50 deposit, & was to pay the group at the end of their performance on the day of the party. The contract names the hired group specifically, & has NO stipulations for subsitutions or cancellations on behalf of the group. It only specifies cancellation by the group due to weather, acts of God, endangerment, etc. The contract was signed & completed three days before my party. I arrived at my venue & find an all male mariachi group. All they knew was that the booking agent called their manager for them to fill in for the group I originally hired. No one even tried to call me, I had no other entertainement & I had to pay the male group even though I did not hire them. Is anyone in breach of contract?
Best answer:
Answer by the asthmatic assassin
The booking agent is in breach. Since you specifically requested for an all-female band and one particular group has already been contracted, a so-called personal obligation had been created. It means to say that the specific performers alone can fulfill the stipulations in the contract and not any other band.
This is similar to hiring the services of a particular painter to do your portrait. The obligation cannot be delegated to any other painter, not even to one with more impressive credentials since by the tenor of the contract, the making of your portrait by the painter contracted has become the essence of the contract itself. The choice of a specific painter made the obligation cease from being a generic obligation, or one which any other painter may perform to satisfy the obligee because it has been converted into a personal one.
Under the law, a breach committed by the obligor in a case like this will entitle the obligee to rescind the contract and receive damages for breach.
The fact that you did not rescind the contract and agreed to engage the services of the replacement does not necessarily release the booiking agent from incurring breach of contract. You are still entitled to damages, with a corresponding equitable reduction of the amoount on account of the services rendered by the replacement band.
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