But when Jaxson flat-out suggested in media interviews that the Kardashian-Humphries nuptials were a “staged” event, Kim K. immediately struck back and announced she was suing her ex publicist for at least $200,000.

According to Kardashian’s attorney, Jaxson’s allegations damaged Kim K.’s reputation and violated a confidentiality agreement.

The ongoing Kardashian drama is sure to take a few more twists and turns before it’s all hashed out one way or another. In the meantime, the Kardashian situation holds lessons for the rest of us: While you might not be a high-profile person whose every move is tracked by the paparazzi, you may one day have to consider suing someone.

In fact, if an individual or organization has wronged you and caused you physical, professional, emotional or financial harm or damage, you may be entitled to legal recourse that could net you a significant amount of money.

Suing someone can be a fairly lengthy process depending on the situation. Still, if you have a good case and are comfortable with the idea of filing a court lawsuit, the compensation for damages or losses you’ve incurred may make your efforts worthwhile.

Here are just a few situations where you might need to sue an individual, corporation or another entity, and lessons to heed in each scenario.

BREACH OF CONTRACT

If you hired a contractor or vendor to perform a specific job or task and they failed to perform as specified in your agreement, you may have the right to sue them. A breach of contract occurs when one party in a contract fails to follow through on the terms or conditions previously agreed upon.

You will need to show proof of a written agreement or show that you have some type of enforceable oral contract to the courts. Without this proof, your claim will not hold any weight and you will not be able to pursue legal action. Depending on the nature of your claim, many breach-of-contract cases can be settled in small claims court, where you can represent yourself. In other instances, however, you’d be wise to seek out the help of a skilled lawyer.

In the Kardashian case, Jaxson is accused of violating a confidentiality agreement. But his defense—so far at least—is that while he was sent such a confidentiality agreement, he never actually signed the agreement.

Lesson: A contract isn’t legally binding until it’s fully executed (i.e. legally signed) by both parties.

PERSONAL INJURY SITUATION

If you or a family member were harmed by a defective product or service by a corporation, or someone was hurt on the premises of a store, business facility, or even someone else’s home, you may be able to sue on the grounds of negligence that led to personal injury.

In this type of situation, your best bet is to retain a personal injury attorney and work on a building a solid case. Personal injury cases can range from being quite straight-forward to quite complicated.

For example, if you are walking in a retail store and a worker who is stocking inventory causes an entire row of heavy metal shelves to collapse on you, there may be little doubt that you got injured. But to what extent? Expect to have to provide medical proof of specific injuries and proof that the individual or corporation caused your injuries.

Damages to your reputation, as Kim Kardashian may find, can be more of a gray area. If Kardashian’s efforts to muzzle her former PR agent wind up in court, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Jaxson argue that he didn’t damage Kardashian’s reputation, but that she did that all on her own – via her quickie divorce filing, her previous sex tape, etc.

Lesson: Any time you want to claim injuries of any kind, document everything and be prepared to show a judge how you were “before” an incident (physically, reputation-wise, etc.) and “after” the incident in question.

LOSS OF INCOME FROM FAILURE TO PERFORM

If you hired a specialist to complete a job so that you could generate income through your business, and they are guilty of a breach of contract, you can also sue them to recover you lost income.

As a case in point, assume a company or individual promised to provide 24/7 tech support and website services to keep your business website up and running online. But then the system crashed and no one bothered to return your frantic calls and emails for five straight business days. Such a disaster could cost you untold amounts of money and make you consider suing.

Again, it’s important to work with an experienced attorney to go through all of the details of the situation and calculate the extent of losses and financial distress you’ve experienced.

Lesson: Paperwork, a strong timeline documenting the events, and past financial records can help establish to a court whether or not you have a bona fide claim for loss of income.

COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT

When an individual or corporation copies your work or infringes on a copyright you own in any way, you have the right to sue. This can be a complicated situation in the creative field because so many people are able to create derivatives of your work without your knowledge. Still, if you come across blatant copyright infringement, you can pursue a lawsuit with the help of a copyright lawyer.

Other types of lawsuits might be based on employment discrimination, medical malpractice or deceptive advertising.

Lesson: In all circumstances, you have to think about whether the cost, the time, the effort and the emotional toll of a lawsuit are worth it. If you think it is, then a lawsuit may be in your best interest – no matter how difficult the case appears in the beginning.

“Ask The Money Coach” is a syndicated column written by personal finance expert Lynnette Khalfani-Cox, co-founder of the free financial advice blog, AskTheMoneyCoach.com. Follow Lynnette on Twitter at @themoneycoach.

Wells Fargo and the NAACP have agreed to work together on ways to improve fair credit access, homeownership, and financial literacy for communities of color and other historically disadvantaged communities, the two said in a joint statement.

Over the past three years, the civil rights organization has filed lawsuits against more than 12 large financial institutions, — including HSBC Bank USA, Bear Stearns Residential Mortgage Corp., Chase Bank USA, Citimortgage, and GMAC Mortgage Group L.L.C. — alleging violations of the Fair Housing and Equal Credit Opportunity Acts and racial discrimination.

“We brought these lawsuits against lenders to change and stop patterns of racial discrimination and other mortgage lending behaviors that have shattered American lives, families, and neighborhoods,” said NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous.

The lawsuit, which was filed in March 2009 and also included HSBC Bank USA, had claimed that black borrowers at Wells Fargo were more than 30% more likely to be issued a higher rate mortgage than white applicants with the same qualifications.

At the time, Wells Fargo said the “allegations are totally unfounded and reckless.”

The NAACP will now be able to review Wells Fargo’s data on lending practices and to make recommendations to improve credit availability to African Americans, businesses, and consumers.

Wells Fargo has now endorsed the NAACP’s banking and lending principles, “which advance practices that ensure all borrowers get the highest quality credit vehicle appropriate for their circumstances and that guard against racial discrimination in lending,” according to their joint press release.

The bank, which is the fourth-largest in the U.S. in terms of deposits, said the agreement is “the next constructive step forward in realizing our vision of helping all of our customers to further business ownership and promote financial empowerment.”

However, the bank still faces criticism from the National People’s Action, which claims that Wells Fargo contributed to the current economic and foreclosure crisis because it issued $27 billion in subprime loans in 2006 alone.

Separate trials were slated to go before juries this month after a U.S. District Court judge denied World Wide Technology’s motion to dismiss Ryals’ case. Now, the disputes have been settled out of court.

Ryals, 35, and Smith, 50, received their checks from World Wide Technology March 11 after negotiations that were held at the end of February. “The case was settled to all parties’ satisfaction,” says Scott V. Allen, the attorney who represented both plaintiffs. Because of the settlements’ confidentiality agreements, no details were divulged about the dollar amounts the men received.

Ryals and Smith worked at the World Wide Technology facility in Austin, Texas that supplies parts to Dell Computer Co. In January 2006, Ryals led dozens of coworkers with grievances that alleged discrimination at this work site. Subsequently passed over for a promotion that was given to a white woman, Ryals was fired in April 2007, accused of sexually harassing a Hispanic female subordinate.

One charge that has been leveled at the country’s largest African American-owned firm is that management positions are dominated by whites and that very few blacks hold high-ranking positions. David Steward, chairman of the board, is African American, as is human resources vice president Ann Marr.

When questioned about the lawsuit and employee advancement, World Wide Technology spokesperson Edward Levens said, “World Wide Technology has no comment. The company does not make public statements on personnel or legal matters.”

Though other World Wide Technology workers had filed complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, lawyer Allen did not attempt to get class-action status for the lawsuit. However, more racial discrimination court cases against the company may, however, be coming in the future.

“That adds up to the biggest strip mining of working class people that this country has ever seen,” says Benjamin Jealous, president of the NAACP. “People with good credit are having their credit destroyed and are losing their homes. Even if they hold on to them, [they] are being robbed by their bank.”

The court will decide whether this case will be combined with the NAACP’s July 2007 lawsuit against Bear Stearns Residential Mortgage Corp., Chase Bank USA, Citimortgage, and GMAC Mortgage Group L.L.C., among others. The court denied the defendants’ joint motion for dismissal in January.

Upper income African Americans are more than twice as likely to receive higher cost loans from these banks as their lower income white counterparts, according to a 2007 study by the National Community Reinvestment Coalition.

When banks contribute to that disparity it “violates the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, the Fair Housing Act, and the Civil Rights Act,” says Angela Ciccolo, the NAACP interim general counsel, who is seeking injunctive relief to get banks to change their policies and practices in the future.

In response, Wells Fargo said in a statement, “The NAACP’s allegations are totally unfounded and reckless. We are proud of our lengthy record leading the industry in responsible lending practices…which makes the very thought of a discrimination claim reprehensible to us.”

Similarly, HSBC stands by its fair lending and consumer protection practices, saying that they treat “customers fairly and with integrity,” according to an HSBC spokesman.

Wells Fargo expressed dismay that the NAACP had “chosen to abandon” past discussions to develop a partnership that would benefit its constituents and communities.

“Wells Fargo was given every opportunity and every consideration and we’ve moved on from that,” Ciccolo says. “We will ask for the court to decide our claims.”

All in all, there are 14 banks being sued and many of them have received taxpayer dollars from the $787 billion government bailout of banks. While HSBC has neither applied for nor received federal bailout funds, the NAACP’s Jealous maintains they are still accountable to changing their behavior.

“Regardless of whether you are using taxpayer dollars or simply relying on the public’s trust, you have a responsibility to obey federal law and not discriminate,” Jealous says.