Legal Question in Business Law in Arizona

Background: My husband rode his motorcycle to a mechanic to have the carburetor worked on. Husband paid for repair and rode it home. That evening the motorcycle leaked gas everywhere and we had to return it (by trailer) to mechanic to fix it. Mechanic swears he's fixed carburetor but the bike still isn't running so he keeps working on and tacking on charges for other repairs. Called again to say was running and ready to pick up, but when husband had mechanic put gas in to make sure not leaking, it still leaked. My question is: we took a motorcycle in for repair that was running, but now it's not and the repair costs keep going up, what legal grounds do we have to get our motorcycle back that no longer runs without having to pay for work that hasn't repaired the bike? The bike was running when we took it in, $600 and a month and a half later it's not running and we don't feel we should have to pay for repairs on a bike that is worse off after the mechanice worked on it.


Asked on 11/23/09, 5:54 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
William Frantz William M. Frantz, MBA., JD., Attorney At Law

You should likely bring a small claims action against the mechanic. The primary cause of action is breach of contract. You can discover a fair amount of information about small claims by following this link:

http://www.supreme.state.az.us/info/brochures/smclaims.htm#Who can use

However, the jurisdictional limit for small claims is $2,500 and therefore the claim you bring cannot exceed this amount. If it does, then you need to file in Justice Court where the jurisdiction is $10,000 or less. If the damage to the motorcycle exceeds even that amount then the only viable solution would be to retain an attorney to file in the Arizona Superior Court system for your County. Note: You can also retain an attorney in justice court as well.

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Answered on 12/01/09, 1:35 am


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