Goedjn wrote:
Les Fingers wrote:

How can an electrician develop a contract to perform electrical work
and not understand the local code requirements. He needs to
understand electrical work more than he understands contracts. This
is called ignorance of the law...on his part.

Sounds like you need to take the electrican and the documentation to
small claims court.

You'll lose, in court. If the extra work needed to be done, then
it doesn't matter whether the cost of is was included in the original
quote. Only if the original quote was both a firm quote instead
of an estimate, *AND* it includes phrasing like "and any other
incidental work" that implies doing whatever it takes to get the
job finished do you even have an argument. And it's unlikely
that both of the above will be true at the same time. Then,
given that small claims courts are courts of equity, you're unlikely
to be able to get the judge to let you make a profit off of the
tradesman's mistake, unless you can show that he did it on purpose,
or was exceptionally negligent or incompetent, *AND* that the
resulting mistake cost you _extra_ money. Which it didn't,
as the additional $350 is just what it would have cost you had
he (or some other, smarter electrician) gotten the quote right, the
first time. I suppose you might have an argument if you
can show that $350 is excessive for a pull-box.

Utilities can be quite arbitrary in the requirements they impose, it is
often up to the field supervisor who thinks he is God and makes up the rules
as he goes.