The Design Magazine Of The Beverly Hills Courier - Clifton S. Smith, Jr - Marcia Hobbs - Annie Suh The Design Magazine of The Beverly Hills Courier Ripped Me Off As A Freelance Writer Beverly Hills California

In July, 2007, I contracted with The Design Magazine of The Beverly Hills Courier for an article on fall foliage travel in New York City. The pay rate was to be fifty cents per word. The contract said I would be paid for the number of words in the accepted article.

But I had some concerns about the contract they offered, particularly as regarded the timeline for my payment, which I expressed to Editor Annie Suh.

She e-mailed me saying that I would be paid 30 days after publication and the publication date of the issue of The Design Magazine of The Beverly Hills Courier with my article was October 5, 2007.

I completed my article on deadline and the editors Annie Suh and Marcia Hobbs accepted it.

Then Marcia Hobbs had a request for a specific editorial addition to my article of about 200 words. I made that addition and Marcia Hobbs thanked me for it.

On October 5, I e-mailed Editor Annie Suh, saying I was pleased my article was being published that day and asking her to remember to send me contributors copies.

She responded, saying that publication had been delayed and that there would be a corresponding delay in payment.

That set off alarms bells for me, because they could conceivably never publish and connive to never pay me.

I wrote to Ms. Suh, asking for a "no later than" payment date promise. I was willing to be flexible with the date, even though the contract terms I had with them said I was to be paid 30 days after October 5.

Ms. Suh told me she would get back to me with Marcia Hobbs' response within a few days, but then did not communicate with me.

Ms. Annie Suh subsequently abdicated all responsibility in the matter. There is no way of being sure that she and Clifton S. Smith, Jr., Esq. are not in collusion to rope people in and then cheat them.

Next, I e-mailed them saying that I required a "no later than" payment date commitment and that if I didn't receive one, I would notify the world famous writer's advocate Ms. Angela Hoy of WritersWeekly.com.

Then I got a response from the Publisher of The Design Magazine of The Beverly Hills Courier, Clifton S, Smith, Jr., Esq.

He immediately began threatening legal action against me and Ms. Hoy on the basis of defamation if I continued in my complaint against his company and if Ms. Hoy published my complaint.

Mind you; all I was asking for was a commitment from the company to pay me for contracted work I had completed and they had accepted.

Mr. Smith at one point referred to Ms. Hoy's handling of my complaint as her "indulging" me. Though he is a lawyer, he said that Ms. Suh when she contracted the article from me had no authority to set any contract terms with me and that therefore, he did not have to give me a "no later than" payment date.

In truth, he was obligated under contract law to pay me 30 days after October 5. I was trying to reach an ammicable resolution of the situation by letting them name a "no later than" payment date, so long as they would actually name one. It could have been January 1, 2008, so long as I had a commitment from them to pay me.

Clifton S. Smith, Jr.'s illicit assertion that his employee Annie Suh . . . (an illicit assertion coming from a lawyer, no less, who is also a publisher) . . . flies in the face of IMPLIED AUTHORITY OF CONTRACT. Mr. Smith was counting on me and Ms. Hoy not having knowledge of that aspect of contract law. He tried to intimidate us out of making a justified complaint against his company by that means.

Worse yet, at one point, he implied that my communications with him and Ms. Hoy's eventual publication of them would violate RICO laws, and he implied that he would be able to bring RICO charges against us.

RICO charges are criminal charges. Clifton S. Smith, Jr., Esq. is a member of the State Bar of California. They have a rule by which a member may not threaten anybody with criminal charges in order to gain an advantage in a civil dispute. I have e-mail documentation showing that Clifton S. Smith, Jr., Esq. threatened me and Ms. Hoy with criminal charges in order to gain an advantage in a civil dispute.

Thanks to Ms. Hoy's intervention, I did receive a check from The Design Magazine of The Beverly Hills Courier by October 5. Without her intervention, I almost certainly would not have received a check in a timely fashion.

However, I was owed $1,034.50 but their check was only for $875.

I told them through Ms. Hoy that I require payment of the remaining balance of $159.50.

Their response to her was that they only pay for the number of words they decide to publish of an accepted article.

They claim that no other writer has ever complained about that. But I submitted my invoice to them in August, 2007, per procedures they had me follow. I of course submitted an invoice for the number of words in my accepted article. There would be no way of knowing in August how many words they would randomly decide to publish of it in October.

Publishers that want to be able to commission a certain number of words and then pay for the published word count only . . . and who want to do that in an honest and non-deceptive manner . . . issue contracts that clearly state "The writer will be paid for the number of words in the final, published article." My contract . . which is their standard contract . . . had no such language.

Furthermore, their standard contract states that the writer will be allowed to express his/her opinion about their edits of the article to be published. Neither Clifton S. Smith, Jr., Esq, Marcia Hobbs or Annie Suh gave me the opportunity to express my opinion of the mangled, reduced word count version of my article that they published.

In sum, here is what freelancers might expect of The Design Magazine of The Beverly Hills Courier:

1) An editor will con you into believing you have been granted certain contract terms, but then the Publisher Clifton S. Smith, Jr., Esq, though a lawyer, will try to intimidate you out of insisting that those contract terms be honored.

2) If a situation arises wherein Clifton S. Smith, Jr., Esq. and The Design Magazine of The Beverly Hills Courier are violating your contract terms, or threatening to violate them, your only hope for having at least some of the terms honored without going to small claims court is to denounce these unethical publishers and editors to a prominent writers advocate.

3) Editors Annie Suh and Marcia Hobbs will not hesitate to ask you to do extra work for them after your originally contracted work on a piece has been completed and accepted. Then, not only will they not pay you in full for the originally contracted work, they wont pay you for the additional work they requested from you either.

4) Mr. Clifton S. Smith, Jr., Esq. will seek to violate your contract terms and to intimidate you out of complaining about him, by using methods that he as a lawyer should know are not ethical. In some cases, though he is a lawyer and a member of the State Bar of California, he uses intimidation methods that may not be legal, that appear to violate a rule of the State Bar of California, and that in any case definitely seek to inhibit your exercise of your first amendment rights. If Clifton S. Smith, Jr., Esq. is seeking to breach a contract with you, you have the first amendment right to tell the facts of the case to whomsoever. He however will try to intimidate you out of telling the facts of the case to anybody.

I continue to require my remaining balance of $159.50 from the unethical editors and publisher Annie Suh, Marcia Hobbs, Clifton S. Smith, Jr., Esq. of The Design Magazine of The Beverly Hills Courier.

Scott
New York, New York
U.S.A.