Tales from the Front
We represent a seafood wholesaler. Not the kind that sells frozen fish sticks shaped like cartoon characters who may or may not believe they are space rangers or have snakes in their boots. I am talking about live lobsters. The kind that arrive with claws rubber-banded, clicking, and very much alive.
For over two years, our client, whom I shall refer to as “Sleepless Lobsters”, supplied a retailer, whom I shall refer to as “Bubba Gump’s Cousin”. Every week, crates of lobsters were delivered. At the end of every month, invoices were paid. A steady, uneventful commercial relationship. The sort that makes a creditor comfortable. Too comfortable.
Then came the final delivery. A little over $5,000.00 in lobsters.
No payment.
Sleepless Lobsters did what every responsible wholesaler does. They stopped shipping. They called. They emailed. They followed up. Silence. One hundred twenty days passed. Then, like a volleyball suddenly washing back ashore, the retailer resurfaced.
“We are not paying,” they declared. “The lobsters are dead.”
Attached was a photograph. A dramatic one. Every lobster, motionless, in their original crates. A crustacean road to perdition.
Now, I am no marine biologist. But I can say with confidence that lobsters have a limited shelf life outside the ocean, particularly if left sitting in a crate for four months.
The retailer insisted the photograph proved their righteous refusal to pay. They spoke as though we had delivered a crate of fallen soldiers.
Sleepless retained our office to sue. Bubba Gump retained counsel, and the issue was no longer whether the lobsters were dead. The issue was *when* did they die? We requested the original file. Not a screenshot. Not a forwarded image. The original digital file. If you have never had the pleasure of explaining metadata to a seafood distributor, it is delightful. Somewhere between shellfish pricing and shipping conditions, you find yourself discussing time stamps and embedded digital information, with no albino monk.
Of course, sometime between Day One and Day 120, the lobsters perished. That is what they are wont to do, when left unattended in a crate. The defense theory appeared to be that our client was responsible for the inevitable passage of time.
We were prepared to have an expert testify about proper seafood handling, refrigeration standards, and the radical concept that if you intend to reject perishable goods, you should do so promptly, not after a quarter of a calendar year has passed.
But before we could get to trial, we conducted the usual post suit investigation.
And what we discovered was far more instructive than any marine science lecture. The retailer was out of business. No storefront. No inventory. No bank accounts worth discussing. No equipment. Nothing.
And of course, there was no personal guarantee. Two years of smooth transactions. Not a single issue. Not one bounced check. Not one late payment. And because everything had always gone swimmingly, no one insisted on a guarantee at any time in the relationship.
The corporation was a soft-shell corporation, at best.
