Legal Question in Consumer Law in California
As a consumer in California I took my car to an independent shop after receiving advise as to what repairs must be done by the dealer. I instructed the independent shop to do certain repairs. When I was not satisfied with the discounted repairs I stopped payment on the check and took my car to another shop to have more work done. I gave the independent shop no opportunity to correct the repairs. Then the (first) independent shop sued me for the costs of the repairs and I counter-sued them for the cost of the second shops repairs.
My question is: Did I owe a duty to the first shop to give them an opportunity to correct the repairs before I took my car to the second shop? Can I now recover the costs of the second shops repairs?
1 Answer from Attorneys
You have a duty to mitigate your damages. Whether or not the first shop was capable of fixing any problems is the key question. You do not have to keep taking a car back to an incompetent or unqualified shop, but if there is no evidence they could not have corrected the issues with their work, you have a problem with creating monetary damages that you could have easily avoided, which makes them not recoverable.
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