Legal/Doing whats right input requested

I’ve got court coming up on a silly case that id like some input on, especially if anyone has had as similar issue.

About a year and a half ago we roofed a house that SF did the “no damage” deal on the 17 year old chimney flashing on, so we re-flashed the chimney during the re-roof.

About 6 months after the work was done the customer calls with a leak. Most of our work and all of the our crews were 2 hours away but no big deal, I send a crew down to check it out. They looked everything over, added a little caulk and came back later that day and water tested to find that there was no more leak.

A few weeks later the customer calls back and says the leak is happening again, I send a different crew down who does bascically the same as the first and reports back no leak.

A few weeks later the same thing happens again, in fact the same thing played out 6 times over the course of 3-4 months.

Finally after 6 trips the customer tells me that when the house was built 17 years ago it took 5-6 different contractors to figure out how to make the chimney stop leaking. When I asked him what the issue was he said they told him it was something with the mortar and they fixed it with a clear spray.

I told the customer at that point that our work there was done, we had made 6 trips with 3 different crews and that the roof never leaked when spraying the flashing with a hose. I told him that he should contact a brick mason to redo the mortar that was admittedly the problem from the start that a temp repair was done to 17 years ago.

I though that was the end of it until about a week later he starts calling all of us again demanding we repair it. I told him that I would send a crew down 1 more time to apply a temp repair to his mortar to show him that its not the chimney leaking and then he could move forward with getting the repairs he needed. He agreed

The crew put a silicon mortar repair product on the mortar and I didn’t hear anything for about a month. I then get a register mail letter from the customer advising that if I don’t redo his mortar he will be suing me because our repair to it was unsightly (it was pretty ugly no doubt) but that it did fix the leak.

I told the customer that we had no obligation to him or his mortar that he’d admitted in writing was an issue in the past, and he sued me.

He is trying, with some schmuck lawyer, to get me for a little over $4500. (repairs have to be under a grand, tops) Because any lawyer would cost me at least half that to handle this absurd case I decided to just fight it on my own and see what happens.

My summons states I must present any issues at law and I have no idea what the legal parameters are of something like this. My contract does state that customers agree to arbitrate which he did not do. The fine print on the back is pretty pro contractor but it was an older version before I cleared/cleaned things up a bit.

I also need some good voir dire questions.

I would have been more open to assisting in finding a mortar/mason fellow if he had been honest with me but nothing pisses me off more than an asshole that attempts to get his entire home rebuilt on my dime. Normally we just cave to these morons to collect our money but its usually something stupid like some new flowers or a section of gutter that they swear we bent.

I have a A+ BBB in 4 markets for 5+ years, I take care of everyone but this guy just pissed me off.

Any advise/input/help is appreciated.

IMHO, you have only two viable options. Pay him or get an attorney. You supposedly do 2000 roofs per year. Who cares if the attorney costs $2,000? Based on your legal questions, it is clear you have very little understanding of the law or legal process.

They bonehead we typically use told me 2500-3000 with no guarantees because its basically kangaroo court. So why would I expose myself to 7500 when if I go alone worst case is 4500 and I truly think I can win by myself. On a side note I signed up for the scam called legal shield after this but they are of little help since this all started before them.

If I truly felt we were wrong in any way shape or form he would have been taken care of just like everyone and anyone else we have dealt with.

Every company has issues and problems and what defines them, and defines you as a man, is how you handle them. I preach that every day to my guys and customers alike because I cant think of a truer statement.

Ultimately no matter what they say in court I have the paper trail from customer of how everything went down AND 6 members of a jury will have to decide that it means nothing for me to lose.

And without much on the storm front this year we’re only looking at 1500 or so…

[quote=“empireroofing”].

Finally after 6 trips the customer tells me that when the house was built 17 years ago it took 5-6 different contractors to figure out how to make the chimney stop leaking. When I asked him what the issue was he said they told him it was something with the mortar and they fixed it with a clear spray.

I told the customer at that point that our work there was done, we had made 6 trips with 3 different crews and that the roof never leaked when spraying the flashing with a hose. I told him that he should contact a brick mason to redo the mortar that was admittedly the problem from the start that a temp repair was done to 17 years ago.

I though that was the end of it until about a week later he starts calling all of us again demanding we repair it. I told him that I would send a crew down 1 more time to apply a temp repair to his mortar to show him that its not the chimney leaking and then he could move forward with getting the repairs he needed. He agreed

The crew put a silicon mortar repair product on the mortar and I didn’t hear anything for about a month. I then get a register mail letter from the customer advising that if I don’t redo his mortar he will be suing me because our repair to it was unsightly (it was pretty ugly no doubt) but that it did fix the leak.

I told the customer that we had no obligation to him or his mortar that he’d admitted in writing was an issue in the past, and he sued me.

He is trying, with some schmuck lawyer, to get me for a little over $4500. (repairs have to be under a grand, tops) Because any lawyer would cost me at least half that to handle this absurd case I decided to just fight it on my own and see what happens.

[/quote]

There is one thing that confuses me. I am not really clear on whether the leak is due to a section of mortar that was directly affected by your flashing install, or to a section that was not. I am guessing the latter from the way you are describing the situation.

Here is where I think you muddied the waters. Your story indicates that with repeated trips out there you succesfully demonstrated several times that there was no evidence that the leak was due to any of your work, and a strong indication there was a pre-existing problem with the overall condition of the chimney mortar. With the last phone call demanding repairs you should have told him you couldn’t help him. Again, if I understand you correctly, the area of the chimney that needed repairs was not related to or affected by the roofing or flashing job. You should have told him that because this was the case, it was not your problem and he should talk to a mason.

I understand that you were just going out of your way to help the customer understand the real problem so that he wouldn’t walk away from the situation with ill will that might cause him spread bad info around about you. But by having someone work on a section of damaged or missing mortar that was not near the flashing you made his problem your problem. When you went up there and tried to patch that area, you accepted responsibility to do the work to some minimal standard using appropriate materials. Then you did a quick patch with what I would guess is some sort of masonry caulk or ‘mortar-in-a-tube’, an application that the stuff isn’t really ideal for.

Last one who touched it, owns it. Really, if you had established that the leak was not caused by a defect in your work you should never have sent someone up there that last time. By doing so you took responsibility for the quality of that patch. There may well be still a way you can fight this but it will come down to legal technicalities surrounding contract disputes. If your lawyer is charging that much to represent you, I would at least see if you can pay him a smaller fee for his time for a consult so he can help you figure out where you stand.

[quote=“empireroofing”]They bonehead we typically use told me 2500-3000 with no guarantees because its basically kangaroo court. So why would I expose myself to 7500 when if I go alone worst case is 4500 and I truly think I can win by myself. On a side note I signed up for the scam called legal shield after this but they are of little help since this all started before them.

If I truly felt we were wrong in any way shape or form he would have been taken care of just like everyone and anyone else we have dealt with.

Every company has issues and problems and what defines them, and defines you as a man, is how you handle them. I preach that every day to my guys and customers alike because I cant think of a truer statement.

Ultimately no matter what they say in court I have the paper trail from customer of how everything went down AND 6 members of a jury will have to decide that it means nothing for me to lose.

And without much on the storm front this year we’re only looking at 1500 or so…[/quote]

Who told you this would be a trial by jury? Over $4500? That still qualifies under small claims in most jurisdictions. Further, in most jurisdictions, whenever a corporate entity is involved in a small claims dispute, the corporate entity must engage an attorney. Perhaps both of those situations do not exist where you are however.

“Expose yourself to blah blah blah”. Like I said, you purportedly do 2000 roofs per year and you’ve repeatedly bragged about how rich you are. Seems to me a decision is either pragmatic or it is emotional. You are somehow trying to combine a pragmatic (use logic of keeping your downside loss to $4500) decision with an emotional one (I’m right, blah, blah, blah). Good formula for complete failure. What a good attorney should have told you is you could potentially file a counter suit against this Customer for a frivolous law suit. It could be heard concurrently with the law suit against you. You could be asking for your attorney fees to be paid. If what you said was accurate, it indeed sounds as if the law suit against you is frivolous in multiple ways. I think the first thing you need to do is consult with a competent attorney in your area. Assuming your rendition of the story here is close to true and assuming you have grounds to counter file for a frivolous law suit, there is a more than reasonable chance the other party could drop their suit entirely when they find out they have a good chance of not only losing but also could end up paying up to $3000 or more for your attorney’s fees.

I don’t remember the exact saying but it goes something like “A person who represents themselves in court has a fool for a client and an idiot as an attorney”. Your impression of court may be that you’ll get a fair hearing and your side will be listened to and I have to tell you, that is incredibly naive. I would never appear in court for anything without having an attorney with me. The court system is not there to give you a fair hearing or justice, it is in place to settle disputes. Period. It most often has very little to do with what is right or wrong, what is fair or justice. Having a COMPETENT attorney (that might be considered by many as an oxymoron) provides you with the potential for leveling the playing field. It also sends a message to the other side that you aren’t going to lay down and accept your fate.

[quote=“eharri3”]
There is one thing that confuses me. I am not really clear on whether the leak is due to a section of mortar that was directly affected by your flashing install, or to a section that was not. I am guessing the latter from the way you are describing the situation.

Here is where I think you muddied the waters. Your story indicates that with repeated trips out there you succesfully demonstrated several times that there was no evidence that the leak was due to any of your work, and a strong indication there was a pre-existing problem with the overall condition of the chimney mortar. With the last phone call demanding repairs you should have told him you couldn’t help him. Again, if I understand you correctly, the area of the chimney that needed repairs was not related to or affected by the roofing or flashing job. You should have told him that because this was the case, it was not your problem and he should talk to a mason.

I understand that you were just going out of your way to help the customer understand the real problem so that he wouldn’t walk away from the situation with ill will that might cause him spread bad info around about you. But by having someone work on a section of damaged or missing mortar that was not near the flashing you made his problem your problem. When you went up there and tried to patch that area, you accepted responsibility to do the work to some minimal standard using appropriate materials. Then you did a quick patch with what I would guess is some sort of masonry caulk or ‘mortar-in-a-tube’, an application that the stuff isn’t really ideal for.

Last one who touched it, owns it. Really, if you had established that the leak was not caused by a defect in your work you should never have sent someone up there that last time. By doing so you took responsibility for the quality of that patch. There may well be still a way you can fight this but it will come down to legal technicalities surrounding contract disputes. If your lawyer is charging that much to represent you, I would at least see if you can pay him a smaller fee for his time for a consult so he can help you figure out where you stand.[/quote]

You understand the situation, And I agree with most of what you said. The issue was well above the area of the flashing. I wasn’t going with the crew so some things didn’t go down ideally but it is what it is. If the guy wouldn’t have tried to get me to rebuild his whole house for free after making me chase my ass for months it wouldn’t have come to this.

If I’m going to lose I feel like I was going to lose with or without an attorney, and that’s how my attorney felt also, so why throw another 3k on top of the 4.5.

It doesn’t matter how much money you have AD, aside from actually spending some time to prepare I wouldn’t do anything differently if the amounts were 50 times this.

I know, much more so than you do, that court is a song and dance, and whomever sings and dances the best is who wins, what’s right or wrong rarely matters if you don’t seem…well, authentic.

Their goal, is to file a suit for a couple grand that they know will cost a couple grand to defend, and hope you decide to just pay them instead of pay to fight.

[quote=“empireroofing”]

Indeed. So either pay them or pay to fight it. Don’t be half pregnant and expect any type of favorable result. Were it me, I’d either make a completely pragmatic decision and pay him off or I’d spend however much it took to win. With your last post, it nows sounds like there is more to the story than originally told. Regardless, good luck with the situation, I hope it turns out well for you.

[quote=“Authentic_Dad”]

[quote=“empireroofing”]

Indeed. So either pay them or pay to fight it. Don’t be half pregnant and expect any type of favorable result. Were it me, I’d either make a completely pragmatic decision and pay him off or I’d spend however much it took to win. With your last post, it nows sounds like there is more to the story than originally told. Regardless, good luck with the situation, I hope it turns out well for you.[/quote]

There is nothing more to the story that what I posted. Why would I ask for advise on partial or skewed information? I’m not here to convince anyone of anything. Just asking for advice from someone who has been through a similar situation.

My goal was to waste as much of this idiots resources as possible while preserving mine. Defeating his paid attorney with no expense to me would be the perfect accomplishment of this. My initial anger towards the situation is that he could have hired a mason for less than they spent to do this. I made the decision to not spend a dollar more on this and that is the route I took.

Show the paper trail. DO NOT make any comment beyond any given fact! Period. Make statements based on fact and shut yer trap. The Judge will look at you for several minutes waiting to see what you blurt out during the silence. One ‘blurt’ can cost the whole case.
I’ve won several against lawyers and the one I lost cost me $5.00 in fines.
BTW, the next time you get an issue like this, and you will!, Siloxane is what you want. If the chimney is not something Siloxane will work on, you better have noted that in the original report and estimate.

[quote=“empireroofing”]I’ve got court coming up on a silly case that id like some input on, especially if anyone has had as similar issue.

Finally after 6 trips the customer tells me that when the house was built 17 years ago it took 5-6 different contractors to figure out how to make the chimney stop leaking. When I asked him what the issue was he said they told him it was something with the mortar and they fixed it with a clear spray.

*The customer admitted after the fact that the problem was pre-existing (apparently, per your posting) and not related to any of the work you contracted for and therefore understandably not addressed in your contract. If that is indeed the case, you were neither liable or responsible for the pre-existing problem. Doing the right thing would have involved clarifying to the customer the above rather than trying to appease him.

By attempting to appease the customer, you sort of fell into a trap in that in your attempt to appease him, your “repair” was, at least in his opinion, “unsightly” and therefore needed to be made “sightly”(?) - at your expense. You said that the customer sent you a registered letter advising (i.e.; threatening) he would sue you. You then stated; “my summons states”. Something seems to be missing between the registered letter and the summons - which are two different things which have two different meanings. If you did indeed receive an official court issued summons you are, as I’m sure you understand, required to appear to answer the charges and defend your position.

Were it me, I would have reiterated my the point to the customer up front (pre-summons/post reg letter) also by registered mail that the pre-existing problem was not my problem and therefore, any attempt by him or his attorney on his behalf to hold me liable and responsible would be met with an aggressive defense supported by the customers own admission that the problem was pre-existing which logically and obviously contradicts the customers beyond frivilous expected claim that you were/are somehow liable and responsible for the pre-existing problem. “Yes, your Honor, the problem was pre-existing and the contractor was neither liable or responsible for the problem but my relativist mindset permits me to disregard the truth so that I might benefit financially and maybe have some cash left after paying my attorney who told me my merit less case had merit.”

If the facts are as presented, the attorney would also be getting a letter from me stating the obvious with a Cc: to the Judge and the bar. With the admission that the problem was pre-existing, I’d offer to settle with the guy for my costs of doing the repair and lost time in lieu filing criminal charges against him for attempted merchant fraud. *

My summons states I must present any issues at law and I have no idea what the legal parameters are of something like this. My contract does state that customers agree to arbitrate which he did not do. The fine print on the back is pretty pro contractor but it was an older version before I cleared/cleaned things up a bit.[/quote]

HMMM!!!

Maybe now you and everyone else reading this will consider charging for the work they do and not let some adjuster dictate what is required of the job. (CHIMNEY FLASHING)

Look, you are going to have to make this go away. Either with time or money and chances are both. You could really screw him up by making a good faith offer for actual repairs… based on competent masons in the area. Then if he refuses the settlement, and it eventually settles within a certain percentage of your good faith offer, you can go after your attorney fees. Get a smart tough no nonsense kind of attorney who likes to break it off in em. Then, maybe you should revise your invoice for work you actually completed but were not paid for and demand payment for actual work provided. File a lien and foreclose on that sucker. This is not checkers… Its a bar fight and they already have a firm grip on your cajones…

Good luck, and again make it painful for the guy. If you want to be principled then take it all the way. Like AD said, you cant be sorta pregnant.

[quote=“ALLTEXRoofing”]HMMM!!!

Maybe now you and everyone else reading this will consider charging for the work they do and not let some adjuster dictate what is required of the job. (CHIMNEY FLASHING)

Look, you are going to have to make this go away. Either with time or money and chances are both. You could really screw him up by making a good faith offer for actual repairs… based on competent masons in the area. Then if he refuses the settlement, and it eventually settles within a certain percentage of your good faith offer, you can go after your attorney fees. Get a smart tough no nonsense kind of attorney who likes to break it off in em. Then, maybe you should revise your invoice for work you actually completed but were not paid for and demand payment for actual work provided. File a lien and foreclose on that sucker. This is not checkers… Its a bar fight and they already have a firm grip on your cajones…

Good luck, and again make it painful for the guy. If you want to be principled then take it all the way. Like AD said, you cant be sorta pregnant.[/quote]

The field adjuster that bought the roof was approving everything we showed him shingle wise and pulled the “no storm damage” to the flashings on a few. It made more sense to keep letting him approve completely marginal roofs than pick a fight over <$200 and then just try to pick it up on the back end. We supplemented for it and the inside guy wouldn’t approve it either…

I totally agree make a good faith offer ,if he takes it fine .Otherwise hire a good experienced attorney.A smart and no nonsense attorney who has enough experience dealing with such people.If you have your facts right then you should go ahead and deal with it firmly.

If you are going to be in business, you are going to have to account for legal issues. It is an expense that no business will shy away from. You are not an attorney, you are a roofing contractor. Attorneys make for lousy shinglers and shinglers make for lousy attorneys. In my opinion, you have already wasted to much time on this. Legal issues have no room for feelings and emotions. The court system doesn’t care. The facts are the facts and some people present them better than others. I promise you his attorney, as incompetent as he may be, is a much better attorney than you. Your time is money as a business owner. If you are installing the amount of roofs you claim at any type of real margin then your hourly worth is near that of any attorney you would hire, anyway. Utilize your time to make money, not defend it.

Hindsight is 20/20, but a good contract including “pre-existing/hidden conditions” exclusions could have avoided this entire mess. In ludicrous situations like this, your best bet is to have the legal standing to tell the guy “tough nuts” and be done with it.

In my estimation? (Insert BS disclaimer about “this is not legal advise” here.) Tell your story to the judge the same way you told it to us. Nobody needs a lawyer for that. Personally, I tend to believe the guy did not do his own due diligence by concealing the fact that it took 5 guys standing on their heads with one eye closed to repair the leak to the mortar in the first place. That sounds like as much of a “hidden condition” as any to me.

You “repaired” it the way he asked, and for no charge. You never promised it would be aesthetically pleasing. That almost sounds like a windfall for him in the first place. Any further action on your part, other than sending your guys to scrape off what you donated in the first place, would absolutely be an unfair windfall.