On Jul 12, 11:45 pm, "Toller" wrote:
Are you saying that abusing someone on the internet is a way to get
them to cooperate? That can't be right. Are you saying that abusing
someone on the internet and bashing them with bumper stickers is a way
to get them to want to fix stuff on your house? That can't be right
either. What are you saying?

Well, probably not, but legal action didn't seem to work.

That's because the OP is trying to correct his mistakes legally, after
the fact, when he should have corrected them contractually and
logistically before work was started. I'm not talking about the
contractor's mistakes, I'm talking about the OP's mistakes.

As far as your own experiences, you learned an expensive lesson. I
had the luxury of working for others as a construction manager in the
early part of my career so my learning wasn't on my dime and I had big
time experience show me the ropes.

I have a clause in my contract that states that the prevailing party
gets court costs and legal fees. The clients' lawyers _love_ that
clause - they figure if I mess up I'm toast. I _love_ that clause
because I don't mess up. Keeps everyone honest. I have lots of other
clauses that protect my interests.

To be sure! I actually won, so I would have gotten legal fees.

I think that we should hold an immediate grassroots peoples'
referendum and insist that _all_ contracts and _all_ lawsuits
automatically include "prevailing party gets legal fees and court
costs". It would free up about 60% of the court's time, people would
act line grown ups and learn to seek to agree, and there wouldn't be
so many of these newsgroup retaliation posts. Only one problem -
every lawyer in the country would fight it tooth and nail, and a large
proportion of politicians are lawyers so there'd be no help there.

I'm not sure who was responsible for supervising your project, but as
soon as the cheaper windows were delivered to the site they should
have been rejected. The other nonsense was just nonsense, obviously,
and your contractor apparently felt he could do what he liked.
Effective supervision would have eliminated that concept from your
builder's mind. Then the builder would have had the choice to walk
away and get spanked, or stick around and live up to the contract. In
tough situations it may be better to negotiate a settlement so both
parties can part ways more or less amicably - you _definitely_ don't
want a hostile contractor working on your house under duress.

I complained about every problem as they occurred. After I complained about
a dozen or so items, and the contractor just ignored me, my lawyer advised
me to stop protesting it and just document everything. His reasoning was
that the house was torn open (this was an addition) winter was coming and we
had a newborn.

Your lawyer had it ass backwards. You probably signed the
contractor's contract, right? Did you have your lawyer review it? I
don't know if that would have made a difference with what you're
saying about your lawyers attitude, but if your lawyer had written up
the contract and protected your ass-ets, you'd have been able to fire
the guy for breach of contract, would have had the contractor sign
lien waivers as the work progressed, and would have had all of the
court costs, legal fees and lien indemnification included in the
contract.

If the contractor got angry enough to refuse to finish, he
could put a lien on that would prevent me from doing anything for a year or
two. I might ultimately win, but it would be a disastrous win.
That turned out to be bad advice; the judge thought I had an obligation to
object more. Of course, the lawyer might have been right; the alternative
was pretty bad also.

Putting a lien on the house does not prevent you from having someone
else complete the work. It messes up your finances a bit and it can
get messy, but no one would expect you to live in a holey shack
because a contractor cut corners and didn't want to live up to the
contract.

Oh, and as I'm sure you are aware, the judge you mentioned was an
idiot. Judges are not immune from accountability.

He actually fell asleep at one point. My lawyer thought any action would be
counterproductive.

Golf buddies?

On that he was right. 15 years later I had a case that was literally 250
times larger than the house suit go to appeals court; my future kinda
depended on it. Guess who one of the judges on the appeals court was. This
time he ruled for me. It doesn't pay to make enemies.

Oh, so he got it wrong twice?

R