Karen wrote:
Greetings

This is a sensible group on Usenet, so I thought I'd ask here.

My daughter is paying her way through college by babysitting. She has
4 different families she baby-sits for regularly. She took on an
assignment for a new family through a referral. She normally doesn't
take any new assignments on, because the families she sits for, treat
her very well.
The family has 2 children, and the parents are both doctors. They
also have a pet dog. Within 1 hour, my daughter noticed the dog had
one of her less than a week old sneakers in it's mouth, ripped to
shreds.
She paid for these with her money, they ran her $75. The parents
refuse to pay for her sneakers, saying she should be responsible for
her sneakers. She left her shoes at the door, because they have a
very nice new home.
I say the people should have warned her about the dog being a chewer,
and should take responsibility for their pet.

Needless to say, she learned a lesson the hard way.

What do you say?

Assuming the facts are as you have presented them:

You've gotten some heartfelt suggestions, most along the lines of: a) Chalk
up the experience as the cost of doing business, and b) Avoid these parents
in the future. Let's look at some similar conditions:

I. You turn over your car keys to the valet ("Valet parking only") only to
have your car returned with numerous dents. Is your reasoned response simply
to avoid doing future business with the enterprise that wrecked your car?

2. You check your mink coat at the restaurant's door only to have it
returned slathered in chicken-fat. Rancid chicken-fat. Do you simply vow not
to patronize that restaurant in the future?

3. Change the facts in the instant case just a tad; what if the dog had
bitten your daughter instead of the shoes? Would you expect the dog's owners
to cover all the medical expenses involved?

I think your daughter has a learning opportunity here, a moment to stand in
righteous indignation, to look evil in the eye and beat it back into the
dark hole from which it tried to emerge. Suggest to your daughter that she
take the following steps:

1. Send a certified letter to the family outlining the facts: a) I was hired
to baby sit, b) Your dog destroyed my property, c) I was not warned of the
destructive nature of the dog, and therefore, 4) I expect to be reimbursed
for the damage. The briefer the letter, the better. Copy to the family
making the original referral.

2. Hearing nothing in ten days, trot down to the local small claims court
and file a claim. The clerk will walk you through the process. Send copies
of all the paperwork to the original referring family.

This is a slam-dunk legal case. The process above will cost the parents far
more than the $75. They'll have to pay that, of course, plus all the costs
associated with the filing of the claim, plus time off from work if they
want to contest to suit. If they fail to pay the judgment, the cost goes up
dramatically when the constable visits their office with a "levy and
execute" writ and seizes their computers to sell at auction.

A day may come when the courage of men fails - when we forsake our friends
and break all bonds of fellowship. But it is not this day.

An hour of woe and shattered shields when the age of men comes crashing
down. But it is not this day.

This day we fight.

By all that you hold dear on this good earth, I bid you stand ...