he actually admitted to doing it and there was no question the plumbing
was misplaced. something i left out of the initial post was that the
wall where the plumbing ran was actually open on the backside (the
other side of the wall was a closet that was open due to the remodel).
so nothing would have stopped him from taking a quick look. i fixed it
myself and it only cost me about $40 as i had to buy the tools. at
this point its more of an academic debate.


tom wrote:
On 25 Nov 2006 17:16:19 -0800, wrote:

I bought an old home a few years ago in which many things were not up
to code. I had a contractor in to do some remodeling, and in the
course of the trim work, he put a finish nail into a copper plumbing
pipe. Apparently the nail sealed the hole for a while, but just in the
past 3 months it started to leak. I fixed the problem myself and there
wasn't much damage.

I called the contractor and he claimed since the copper pipe wasn't
centered in the stud, and thus not done to code, he wasn't responsible.
I feel that since it wasn't leaking before he started working on the
house, and it was his nail that caused the leak, he is ultimately
responsible regardless of whether the plumbing was to code or not. I
am hoping to settle this dispute and I haven't been able to find any
authoritative legal precedent. Does anyone have any ideas on this?

Many Thanks,
Kevin


This is what I would say to you if I was the contractor's lawyer.

"You Admit that it must have been 3 months after the work before it
leaked"

"So if you have this mystical idea that my client caused a fault that
only revealed itself after 3 months, how do you know the actual fault
wasn't 6 months, or a year earlier? Meaning, do you know it was my
clients nail, or maybe work you did (trying to set the nail deeper),
or the previous owner, or the orginal home builder. Can you prove it
was my client?"

"if I put this glass on the table, you and I leave and come back in 3
months, and the glass is broken, using your logic, I must have been
the one to break it, right? No one else could have done it, no
earthquakes, wind storms, it had to be me. Can you say that
truthfully?"

"If the pipe didn't immediately leak, your case is weak"



Ok, seriously, you need to pick your fights. If the contractor used
normal nails, and the piping was too close to the edge is it his
fault? He/she didn't activly violate any common sense, so the
condition was preexisting. Right? Pick your fights, if the damage
was nominal, then you already won.

Good luck, and keep us up to date about the problem.

tom