03x41 - Shirt Storm

[bunniefuu]

They're complaining
that they got some T-shirts,

but you didn't send them
half of the ones that they ordered.

There were a lot of changing designs
that took up our time,

that took up our money,
that we didn't charge them for.

That is not our fault.
We don't make the design.

I don't know
if that makes sense. [chuckles]

That sounds like a "yada, yada, yada."

[announcer]
This is Judy Justice.

[theme music playing]

[announcer] Bailiff Cassandra Britt
is standing in for bailiff Kevin Rasco,

and law clerk Alexei Mentzer
is sitting in for law clerk Sarah Rose.

Isaiah Khamchanh
and Brandon Ulloa are suing

their former supplier, Manuel Garcia,
for the cost of a T-shirt order.

[Bailiff Cassandra]
Order in the court. All rise.

Have a seat, please.

Case number 3072,
Khamchanh/Ulloa versus Garcia.

Thank you.

Who is Mr. Khamchanh?

It's you.

You were starting up a business,
a T-shirt business.

Correct.

[Judge Judy]
The defendant was also in business.

He makes shirts.

I assume you were
having them made to sell them

-either online or at events.
-Correct.

[Judge Judy] You don't have a store.
Is that right?

-Online store.
-[Judge Judy] Online.

What's the name of your company?

Rizin Athletics.

-[Judge Judy] Reason?
-Rizin.

-[Judge Judy] Risen. Spell it.
-Rizin.

R-I-Z-I-N, space, Athletics.

And where are they incorporated?

-Ceres, California.
-[Judge Judy] In the state of California.

In the state of California.

And it's a corporation.
You have a license.

-You've incorporated it here.
-[Isaiah] Correct.

There's a website
about nine items of clothing.

-May I see it, please?
-Sure.

[Judge Judy]
Make it go.

[Alexei chuckles]

Could you go back there?

Okay, I just wanna see
where they order them from.

Great. And what's the name
of your company, sir?

MFP Studios.

-[Judge Judy] MFP Studios.
-Correct.

-Where are you located?
-[Manuel] Los Angeles.

[Judge Judy] How long have you
been in business, Mr. Khamchanh?

About a year and a half.

Did you make any money
the first year you were in business?

-[Isaiah] Yes.
-How much?

Approximately 10,000.
A little over.

Nice.

In that first year, did you get
any merchandise from Mr. Garcia?

We did.

[Judge Judy]
So you made some money from...

Not from his clothing, actually.

Not from his.
What other company do you deal with?

We did wholesaling
through Champion, the website.

Champion is a wholesaler?
I thought they were a retailer.

So they have a website
where you can wholesale and buy

a bunch of garments that they
allow you to reprint on and sell.

So that's what we did originally.

I found an Instagram page
for MFP Studios.

The website is coming soon.

I have the website
currently closed right now.

-[Alexei] Currently closed.
-Yeah.

[Judge Judy]
You what?

[Manuel] Yeah, our website opens
and closes, like, periodically.

So right now, it's actually closed.

But if you would like,
I can go and open it for you guys.

You guys can take a look at it.

I wanna know why it closes, Mr. Garcia.
What does that mean, sir?

So usually the way
that my company works

is that we do custom manufacturing
for specific brands,

so it's very customized,
but at times I do produce blanks

on my own
where I'll put on my website.

But currently we don't have any,

so my website is closed
until we produce them,

and then we post them
on our website.

I don't know
if that makes sense. [chuckles]

[Judge Judy]
It doesn't make sense.

How much money did the plaintiffs
send you to produce T-shirts for them?

-How much money did the...
-Uh, for the T-shirts...

Shh. How much money
did the plaintiffs send you

to produce T-shirts for them?

-And I'd like to see the order.
-[Manuel] Okay.

-[Judge Judy] Can I see all the papers?
-So these would be the...

the invoices for the T-shirts.

Thank you.

Did they pay all of these invoices?

[Manuel] Yes.

Lex, would you wait up
these invoices for me, please?

How many T-shirts
were they supposed to have?

Total should have been
approximately 320.

Is that correct?

-That's correct.
-That's correct.

[Judge Judy]
How many did they receive?

That's what this case is about.

Correct. They should have
received at least 180.

-So about half.
-[Manuel] Correct.

-[Brandon] That's not true.
-Just a sec.

All right.

-And you got paid.
-[Manuel] Correct.

Well, at least for that number of shirts,
they get their money back, right?

-State that again.
-[Judge Judy] Duh.

For the number of T-shirts
that you didn't send them,

they get their money back.

Well, there was a couple other things
that were taking into place.

-So that's kind of an issue.
-[Judge Judy] Like what?

So there was a lot of changes
that were being made.

Hold on a sec. Alexei.

Seven-nine-nine-six.

Seven-nine-nine-six
is the total of all those invoices.

Great.

All I'm saying to you, Mr. Garcia,
this is the case that we're here about.

They're complaining
that they got some T-shirts,

but they were not what they ordered.

You acknowledge that they
didn't get half the T-shirts at all.

And you didn't make them.
And your website is now offline.

-Well, that happens, like, every month.
-[Judge Judy] I don't care.

-Yeah, okay.
-[Judge Judy] I don't care.

I don't know any other company
that takes their website offline.

I mean, I don't understand that.

I could give you a list of a couple.

I don't want you to give me a list of any.

I want you to tell me
why they're not entitled

to at least half their money back.

So like I was saying,
there was a bunch of other changes.

So them not being happy
with the garments that they received,

that, at the end of the day,
I can't control.

That is what they've ordered.
I sent them pictures. I have...

I'm talking about the ones
that they didn't receive, sir.

Not the ones that they did.

Okay.

[Judge Judy]
They were not happy,

which they will tell me about,
about the half that they received.

You acknowledge that you didn't send them
half of the ones that they ordered.

Correct.

[Judge Judy]
Well, why should they pay for those?

That's what I'm asking you to answer.

Yeah, and that's kind of what
I'm trying to explain. So there was...

Well, try to explain it to me
so that Alexei understands it.

He's much smarter than I am.

[Manuel] So when it comes down
to custom manufacturing,

there's a lot of other components
that come into place.

There were a lot of changing designs.

There was a lot of remaking of screens
for us to get the design onto the T-shirt

that we had to do that took up our time,
that took up our money,

that we didn't charge them for.

So that's kind of where everything
in terms of, like, the money goes to,

is what we're saying.

It's like, okay, if you're gonna be
making all these changes,

and then you're not happy with it.

If you can see, I have pictures of me
sending them a print of the T-shirt

and them saying,
"Oh, the print looks different."

At the end of the day,
we don't work on the designs.

We don't change their designs.

Whatever they send us
is what we put on the T-shirt.

If it doesn't come right on the T-shirt,
that is not our fault.

We don't make the design.

That sounds like a "yada, yada, yada."

[theme music playing]

He sent them half.

What he's saying is,
because they kept making changes,

they didn't feel that they had
to send them the other half.

Is that what you're getting?

Yes.

That's a "duh."

[theme music playing]

[announcer]
Isaiah Khamchanh and Brandon Ulloa

claim their former supplier,
Manuel Garcia,

did not properly fulfill
their T-shirt order

and owes them a refund.

Let me see if I can give you
the Reader's Digest of what he was saying

and tell me if that's what you understood.
Would you do that for me?

They ordered 320 T-shirts.

For all intents and purposes,
and because of our easy math,

he sent them half.
They paid for 320.

What he's saying is,
because they kept making changes,

they spent more time
on the half that they got,

so they didn't feel that they had
to send them the other half.

Is that what you're getting?

Yes.

That's a "duh."

Do you understand?

-Yes.
-[Judge Judy] That's a "duh."

You know, I'm trying to think
of an analogous situation for you.

I'm a dentist's daughter.

And I know that sometimes
in my father's business,

somebody would come in
and he'd look at a tooth

and he'd say, "You know what?
It's a simple filling.

You know, I'm gonna charge so much."

And then he started to work.

Patient said, "Okay, you know,
that's a reasonable figure,"

and he started to work.

And all of a sudden, he found, well,
there was a little something else in there

that he really had to do in order to do
what he said he could do for 20 bucks.

[Manuel] Mm-hmm.

[Judge Judy]
And so it took him more time.

You think he charged
the patient for that?

No, he didn't.

So you at least owe them
half of what they sent you.

They sent you $8,000.

Let's make it nice and easy
'cause I'm an easy girl.

And you didn't send them
half the T-shirts.

[Manuel] Mm-hmm.

Now we're gonna talk about
the T-shirts that you did send them.

'Cause... are we finished
with the ones that he didn't?

-Yep.
-Yep.

Now we're gonna go
to the ones that they did send.

And you have to show me
why they were unsatisfactory.

-Pick it up.
-Perfect.

So this is the sample
that we received from him.

So, like, the way samples work is,

he'll send us the clothing,
we'll a-okay it.

So we a-okayed this.
This is a large, by the way.

Everything's perfect.
Everything's great.

[Judge Judy]
Okay, good.

So let me show you
the XL and the small.

So this right here I'm holding is an XL.

-The difference.
-[Judge Judy] Can I?

-And you wanna see the other thing?
-Dramatically smaller.

This what I'm holding is a small.

We ordered four small... sizes:
small, medium, large, and XL.

[Judge Judy]
Hold on. Can I see the small?

-[Isaiah] Yeah.
-Can I see?

-[exclaims]
-[Isaiah] Oh, sorry.

Here you go.

Well, this could be a small.

A big small, but a small.

Can I see the extra-small, please?

-[Isaiah] Uh, extra-large.
-Extra-large?

-[Brandon] Yeah.
-[Isaiah] Yeah.

[Brandon]
Same exact size.

[Isaiah]
They're the same size.

The small and the extra-large,
if you hold them up together,

they're exactly the same size.

Alexei, hold these up together,
would you, please?

Let me see.

He said they're the same size.

I don't think so. Could I?

One certainly looked
bigger to me, but not...

not a small and an extra-large.

Okay. Now this is what
I'd like you to do, Cassandra.

I want you to send
these over to the defendant,

and I'd like him to explain to me
why these are the same size.

One is labeled small,
one is labeled extra-large.

This has nothing to do
with a change of design.

This has to do with almost math.

Which, as we all know,
is not my strong suit.

Okay, so now give me
an explanation, sir.

This has nothing to do
with changing of the design.

That has to do with two T-shirts
that are exactly the same.

One says "small,"
one says "extra-large."

-Explain it.
-This is a very simple fix.

So there was just an issue
with the tag in the labeling.

Just a second.
That's what you sent them.

-Yeah, that's exactly my explan...
-[Judge Judy] Just a second.

No, this is for the actual garment.

What I was referring to
was the print on the design.

No, no, no,
I'm talking about the actual garment.

-Did you send that to them?
-[Manuel] Correct.

-I did send that to them.
-Shh. Just a second.

You sent that to them
with the label that was mislabeled.

-Correct.
-[Judge Judy] Okay.

How many of the mislabeled T-shirts
did you send them?

It's a very common mistake
in manufacturing.

-[Judge Judy] Oh, don't give me...
-I'm not sure.

They didn't give me a number
of how many were mixed up.

-How many?
-Exactly 73.

You see, what the problem, Mr. Garcia, is,
they can't sell those online.

Because if somebody calls
and orders a small

and they send them a small,
it's an extra-large.

Or if somebody calls
and orders an extra-large

and they get it
and it's got a small...

And that could be easily fixed
by just changing the tag.

Who cares? You know,
my face could be easily fixed.

Not so easily anymore.

These are all just fixed...
I mean, they can all be fixed.

When it happens,
it doesn't always, like,

-have to be sent out...
-Yada, yada, yada, yada, yada.

Okay. So half, you didn't send them.
And 73, you sent them wrong.

Of the other half, 73,
you sent them wrong.

Labeled wrong, correct.

[Judge Judy] You sent them wrong
that they can't resell as you sent them.

Online.

I mean, they could send them
to a pop-up store

and sell them for nothing and say,
"You know, you try it on and see...

and see whether it fits you,"
but you can't sell them online.

Otherwise, their business
would be destroyed.

Okay, what about the rest?

Now we're finished with the sizes.

He has claimed he sent us
over 180 shirts.

That's incorrect.
He sent us 123 exactly.

You have any proof
that you sent them 180 shirts?

I had them in text messages,
but I don't have that phone.

But, I mean, I'm sure that...

[Judge Judy] Everybody... you know,
everybody that has no case has no phone.

[Manuel]
I mean, I have...

Mr. Garcia,
everybody that has no proof...

[Manuel]
I have a photo.

Then show it to me
that you sent them 180 shirts.

Well, I don't have
all 180 in the picture.

I have... I mean, I don't know
if you'll be able to count them, but...

[Judge Judy] You want me to count them?
You're in business.

Mr. Garcia.

[Manuel]
You want to show her these?

[Judge Judy]
No. You're in business, sir.

That's not the way you run a business.

One twenty they sent, and of the 120,
how many were you able to sell?

-Out of the 120...
-[Judge Judy] Just a second.

And out of the 120, does that include
the 73 that were wrong size?

-Yeah.
-Yeah.

[Judge Judy]
Oh, that includes...

So we're left with only 50
that weren't labeled incorrectly.

How many shirts did he send you
that you were able to sell?

Zero.

We sold none of his shirts.

[Judge Judy] Because they were mislabeled
or you didn't get them.

Mislabeled or misprinted
and didn't get them.

Great. Do you have any text messages
between the two of you?

So many.

Anything in specific?

I'd like you to show me one
where you say to him,

"We cannot sell these shirts.
They're the wrong size."

We'll show you the demand letter.

So we sent him a demand letter,

hoping that he'd still, like,
try to solve it outside of court.

But he never replied to it
and just never sent us anything.

It would be us telling him
that the items received

were not as promised
and the other side would be the lawsuit.

[Cassandra] Okay.

You say in this demand letter
that you are requesting...

First of all, he doesn't
communicate with you

when you send him information

-back and forth.
-He does not.

So you say, "Sir, since you do not
wish to communicate to us,

-here's an official demand letter."
-[Isaiah] Yes.

You say that you paid him $15,986.

-Correct.
-Correct.

Well, that's not
what your lawsuit is here.

[theme music playing]

Is your company incorporated
in California?

I forgot the answer
to that question.

Well, I have, like, an LLC.
Is that what you're referring to?

-Do you have an LLC?
-[Manuel] I do have an LLC, yes.

[Judge Judy]
What's the name of it?

MFP Studios,
but it probably won't be under that name.

It would be under All Hills.

Why?

[theme music playing]

[announcer]
Isaiah Khamchanh and Brandon Ulloa

have accused
their former supplier, Manuel Garcia,

of owing them a refund
after sending the wrong T-shirts.

Okay. Did he send you any T-shirts?

-[Isaiah] No T-shirts.
-So how much did you pay him?

All in all, minus the set-up fees
that we're also suing for,

it is exactly...

-[Judge Judy] No.
-[Isaiah] Oh, sorry.

I wanna know where the 5986 comes from.

We... so in this order,
we did order 320 pairs of shirts,

but we also ordered 240 pairs of shorts
that we're not suing for.

Why?

-He fulfilled that.
-He fulfilled the short section.

He filled the short section?
-[Brandon] Yeah, he fulfilled the shorts.

Is that what's on your website for sale?

-Yes.
-Yes.

-[Judge Judy] The shorts?
-[Brandon] The shorts.

[Judge Judy]
The shorts. So it's just the T-shirts.

-The shirts, yeah.
-The shirts.

So you did fulfill
the order for the shorts.

Correct.

Do you have a pair
of those shorts for me to see?

I would just like to take a look at them.

No, we did not,
because we weren't aware.

-We weren't suing for those.
-[Judge Judy] No, I understand that.

Did he get these shorts...

Would they say the same screening is
on those? Or are they different?

-No, different screen.
-Different design.

So different set-up fees,
different screens.

We paid for that.
We're not suing for that portion.

We have invoices for them, though.

-[Judge Judy] Can I see?
-Yeah.

Shorts.

'Cause there were shorts
on their website, right?

[Brandon]
It might be in there.

Are they blue?

-[Brandon] Blue, red, and black.
-[Isaiah] Yeah, blue, red, and black.

[Judge Judy]
Blue, red, and black.

And they just have
a little design on them.

[Brandon]
Yeah, correct.

These are all invoices,
but if you wanna show a specific...

[Judge Judy]
And they were okay?

Yeah, they're okay.

Okay, well, they're on your website,
so you're selling them?

Yeah, so that's gonna be
shorts for prints. And we also...

The T-shirts are not on their website.

Correct?

-There are some there.
-Can I see?

There are two.

One T-shirt.

[Judge Judy]
Yeah, that's not it.

-[Alexei] One T-shirt down here.
-[Judge Judy] And that's not it.

Okay, so those,
those are not on the website. Got it.

[Alexei] And one other,
but that's also...

That's not it. That's certainly not
those T-shirts, not the same screen.

Something missing in there is the invoice
for the shorts material we did bring.

We are suing for the screens in that.

That's the only reason
that invoice is here,

'cause he charged us
for owning of screens and films,

that he told us we had to pay for
that we owned

and we never received as well.

-Screens and...
-[Isaiah] Yeah, so what...

Tell me. Explain that to me.

So when making clothing,
you pay for garments

and then you have to pay
for screens and film.

So screens is like these
big metal square frames.

And then you put a...

-Did you pay for those?
-[Isaiah] Yes, we did.

Which are in those invoices.

The only invoice we're missing
is our shorts.

Did you receive those screens?

Well, I made them,
so, yeah, I had them.

[Judge Judy]
Did you charge them?

Yes, I did charge them for them.

And where are they?

They're... well, we don't turn
in the screen, so you have...

So the way that screen printing works
is that when you burn screen,

you hold them for only two months.

You don't store them
for months and months on end.

So after two months,
if they're not being used,

if we're not printing with them,
we recycle them.

[Judge Judy] Mm-hmm.

[Manuel] The film... I mean,
the film is just a piece of paper.

That, I do have handy, so...

He told us that we own them

and we can receive them whenever
we want them for future references.

-So that's why we had asked for...
-So you destroy them?

Correct.

[Judge Judy]
Okay. So then we get to the $9,000.

Actually $9,100.

Are you, Mr. Garcia...

Is your company
incorporated in California?

I forgot the answer to that question.

-Uh, no.
-"Uh" is not an answer.

No, I mean, I'm self-employed.

You're self-employed.
You have a company, you said.

[Manuel] Yeah.

Well, if you have a company,
then you have to be incorporated.

Well, I have, like, an LLC.
Is that what you're referring to?

-Or an LLC. Do you have an LLC?
-I do have an LLC, yes.

[Judge Judy]
Do you have... what's the name of it?

MFP Studios.

Do you find that registered
in the state of California?

Is it registered, sir?

It should, yeah, but it probably
won't be under that name.

It would be under All Hills.

-[Judge Judy] Under what?
-All Hills.

So a different name.

I mean, I have the paper.
I don't know.

I mean, doing business as MFP Studios.

Why?

That's just the way that I was set up.

So that when I got an LLC, it was through
one of my business partners at first,

-so then he just gave me that.
-How many business partners do you have?

-[Manuel] I just have one.
-Who is that?

Well, he's not even a business partner.
He just gave me the LLC so I can use it.

-[Judge Judy] Great.
-Yeah.

We're finished here.

You haven't used his services.
I can't say "company."

You haven't used his services since?

-No.
-No.

-[Judge Judy] 2022.
-Correct.

Okay. Got it.

Judgment for the plaintiff
for the amount of $9,100. We're finished.

-Thank you, Your Honor.
-Thank you.

[Cassandra] Case is now closed.
Court is adjourned.

She sided with them.

And I mean, I just gotta keep doing
my business and just keep going, man.

I like that she was able to see that
he was clearly taking advantage of us,

so I'm happy she saw
the same thing we saw.

It's just something
that happens in this business.

It happens more often than you think.
Overseas, there's a bunch of cases.

I don't know if she's familiar
with the business or... I'm not sure.

I just... I know that it happens often.

It was an easy fix.

They could have still sold the shirts,
but I just think they... I don't know.

They just didn't wanna do it.

Why would he bother sending these
knowing we never agreed on it?

If you've really been in the business,

there's ways to do it
where you can still sell it

and make your money back
to where you have

a good relationship
with your manufacturer.

Never tried working with us,
like, he would barely even respond.

Like, he actually stopped
even communicating with me

because I threatened to sue him once.
So then he started communicating with him.

But if, you know, you come and you're
just, "Yo, I want a full refund,"

it's gonna be very hard
to even fix the issue,

versus just, you know, just...
it's more of a fix-the-issue thing

than get everything done all over again.

But we tried.

We tried our best for a whole year
and nothing was happening.

So that's when we're like, "You know what?

We can't let somebody walk all over us
like this because it's our company."

It's going to be detrimental if we wait
even longer 'cause it was past a year.

So that's when we decided to sue him.

The constant changes,

they weren't comprehending with my time,
my time scheduled,

in terms of how I did things,
and it just... it didn't work out.

They're also a long-distance client.

My clients usually come into my warehouse.
We're more hands on.

So I don't think it's a good fit.

Definitely take baby steps,
live and learn.

You're gonna, you know,
you're gonna fall a little bit.

It's just how you get back up.

A big lesson learned, for sure.

Rise to the occasion.
That's what we always say.

We'll be back better than ever.

My biggest takeaway
was the power of credibility.

Those plaintiffs came in,

they knew exactly how much
they paid for each item,

they knew exactly what they received,
and they had receipts to back it up.

And when you have your day in court,

it's important you have your arms
fully around your own case.

Yeah, and it only made the defendant
look that more implausible.

Absolutely.

[announcer]
Have you been cheated?

[theme music playing]