[pessimizer]

"Poor quality code" is a matter of opinion. You can't decide not to pay someone because they've delivered what you consider poor quality code. The best defense from that is to track development (with milestone deliverables), and evaluate code quality (or pay someone to evaluate code quality) as you go along, so you can end the relationship early before you've wasted too much money.

Waiting until they're done and deciding that it's crap and refusing to pay in full is not the way to deal with bad developers.

[tothepixel]

True, but it's like lemon laws for cars. If your new car isn't reliable, you're entitled to a refund.

Yeah, there's no law that applies in this instance, but I do sympathize with the company if the code really was subpar. There are a lot of bad developers out there, and for someone who doesn't program it's very difficult to avoid them.

[pessimizer]

I also sympathize, but when you start employing people, a risk you take is that they're horrible at the job. A way of mitigating that risk is by being careful who you hire and monitoring their progress. If you're hiring a programmer, make sure somebody you trust knows something about programming and is available to you.

I'm into firing quickly, too. It's a kindness.

You don't hire someone to work the fryer at your McDonald's, and when they completely blow it and wreck your fryer completely, decide not to pay them for the day. Pay them, let them go. Reevaluate your hiring process.

[chc]

I sympathize with people who make hiring mistakes — and that's pretty much everyone who's ever made a hiring decision — but they still have to pay the people they mistakenly hire for the work they did. It is both the default mode of the law in most places I know, and also just basic professional ethics.