Not Completed and Imperfect Renovation Job – part II | Beit Din Eretz Hemda - Gazit | Beit Midrash

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Case: The defendant (=def) hired the plaintiff (=pl) to do renovations for a fee of 400,000 NIS. Most of the project was completed, and def paid pl 95% of the fee. Due to disagreements between the sides, pl did not complete the job. Pl is suing for the 23,400 NIS not paid and for additional payment he deems to deserve based on extra work. Def countersued for flaws in the work. In an interim ruling, beit din required def to allow pl to fix that which needed fixing. Pl agreed with that setup, whereas def was not willing for pl to do any more work, despite being warned that this could enable pl to get paid even for what he did not do. Def claims that he is justified in losing confidence in pl, who all but admitted that he is incapable of completing the job. [There are many detailed, technical elements, especially to the counterclaim, which we will not get into in this forum.]

Ruling: [We saw last time that there are grounds for obligating def to pay for the full job, with a partial reduction for what was not done.]
It is evident from the Rama (Choshen Mishpat 333:5) that when an employer fires a worker, we calculate payment to the worker in a manner beneficial to the worker only when the worker did not deserve to be fired. In this case, we do not have grounds to prevent pl from finishing the job. First, the employer has the burden of proof that the relatively high bar for the worker’s dismissal has been reached. Second, def’s complaints about pl’s work are not of a severe or an unusual nature.
The contract states that if pl does not get the job done within a certain time limit, pl is to be fined. The work took much longer than expected, but delays on def’s part were responsible. Pl argues that if def was to be compensated for delays, so should pl (he asks for 23,400 NIS). Def counters that such a penalty was not written on purpose and that pl was not hurt by the delays because contractors usually work on more than one job at a time and can transfer workers as needed. Pl was unable to demonstrate how he lost as a result. Additionally, if pl were going to charge for perceived losses due to the delay and they were not in writing, he should have warned about it.
Additional work: Pl claimed two areas of extra work not included in the contract. About one, def says that he does not understand what work he is talking about, and about the other, def claims that it became necessary because of a mistake that pl made. Pl did not prove his point, and certainly, since the contract states that additional charges have to be stipulated in writing (which did not happen), there are not grounds for levying additional payments from def other than for finishing the job.