Legal Question in Construction Law in California

Re: Shady construction guy scam

Why would you throw away valuable tools? Why not sell or give them away? Inquiring minds....

Anyway, this is a common tactic; happened in two of my current cases. Contractor tries to use the hostage / missing tools as leverage for walking away from the project. The argument does have a little merit, but can be rebutted.

Since he's doing a home improvement, he's probably violated numerous laws (not having a written contract, not being properly licensed, not giving the proper disclosures, abandoning a project, failure to return deposits, etc.).

You should probably visit a local attorney to see what your liability is in this situation and whether you should preempt his lawsuit by filing one of your own.

Good luck.

Re: Shady construction guy scam

I generally agree with Mr. Meyer. This "construction guy" probably isn't licensed, and if not, he has committed a lot of wrongs, some civil, some criminal. Further, the homeowner who hires an unlicensed contractor usually does not share the legal blame for his lack of a license, but your sister could still face some problems flowing from failure to obtain permits (if required and not obtained) or failure of the work to meet applicable codes (if this be the case).

Having said that, it was wrong to dispose of the tools by dumping them. Under the law of bailments, which California's Civil Code mysteriously chooses to refer to as deposits, your sister was an "involuntary depositary" of the tools, and had a "slight" duty of care toward them, and to end the deposit should have (a) returned them or (b) given the depositor (the contractor) reasonable notice to come and pick them up.

If after giving reasonable notice and waiting a reasonable time, then you can dispose of the property in a commercially-reasonable manner. Sounds like reasonableness has a lot to do with it - that's because the folks who wrote the statute back in 1872 couldn't foresee all the possible situations and needed to come up with a universal rule.

If the tools were worth 50 bucks or so, dumping them might be reasonable, but if they were worth a couple thousand, the reasonable thing to would be to sell them, deduct your costs of sale, and hold the net proceeds for the guy. Also, I would think that "reasonable notice" would probably include written notice by certified mail to his last-known address (for your own protection). A telephone message left on an answering machine or an e-mail is probably legally adequate, but doesn't provide proof of delivery.