Shabbat Parashat Yitro 5786

P'ninat Mishpat: A Contractor’s Leaving the Job in the Middle – part III

Case: The plaintiff (=pl) hired the defendant (=def) to do extensive renovations to her apartment for around 750,000 NIS. Def began the work and over time received around 370,000 NIS from pl. Pl claims that, at some point, she began becoming suspicious that the amount of money def was requesting was not in line with the work he had done and that def was barely on the site and was well behind schedule. She demanded that def justify in writing the money requested in relation to the work completed. Def did not do this and also demanded an increase in pay due to pl asking for additions and his own mistaken underpricing. Pl refused, and def stopped the work. Pl demands a return of money that exceeded the work done and compensation for building flaws.

Ruling: [After seeing that pl was correct regarding the “heart of the claim,” we are in the midst of exploring multiple smaller questions.] 

Scaffolding: Def wants extra pay for having built a scaffold to build a balcony off of the living room, even though at the end it was not used because neighbors prevented it. Pl counters that def did it on his own. There is communication between def and pl’s son, who was authorized to represent his mother, in which def did initiate the change of the place of the balcony and expressed his expectation the neighbor will agree. What is important is that at the end, the son agreed to the change. Therefore, even if pl did not end up gaining anything from this part of the work, pl still has to pay for it (see Shulchan Aruch, Choshen Mishpat 335:3).

Changes and delays: Def claims to deserve extra pay for delays that pl caused by making changes and because of new requests by the engineer. Pl responds that almost all of the delays stemmed from what turned out to be def’s inexperience with a job of this magnitude; def did not complain about these things as they were occurring. Beit din notes that small changes and delays are a natural part of a major renovation job, and when a certain element of the work has a delay, one should be able to work on other parts of the project. Therefore, def has not made a sufficient case for an increase on his fees due to delays.

Mispricing: Def claims that he charged far too little and therefore should be able to void the contract and receive more for what he did. Also, def was unaware that due to the way the house was constructed (pre-fab), drilling is more difficult. Pl rejects def’s ability to make such a claim since he spent a long time studying the job, made multiple visits, and asked for time to discuss with others. Beit din rules that def cannot back out of his price estimate. First, most of the fee was for work on things that are attached to the ground (see Pitchei Teshuva, CM 227:26) upon which there is no claim of mispricing. More fundamentally, pl received estimates from several contractors, and it is not tenable to allow someone to win the contract with the lowest price and then remove the obligation to follow that price.   

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