Small Claims Court Question

[cgrohman]

You sue him for breach of contract. All you can recover is the difference in value between what you should have received and what you got, i.e. the countertops as you contracred for vs. the [censored] ones you got. The Court will likely measure this as the cost it will take to fix his mistakes.

[Rococo]

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^^^ Great post. I'm a little shaky about sworn estimates being inadmissable, though. From my undertstanding, the vast majority of Judges have no idea as to the reasonable cost/damages that problems cause, which is what the estimates are for.

Really your only good bet is to document the problem as much as possible, get some "expert" to look it over that is willing to spend a day in court (friends help for this, obv), then redo the bathroom and gamble on the idea of getting recompensated for it.

Remember that the courts are there to compensate you for damages, NOT pre-emptively fix your problems for you... You're likely going to have "lose something" (i.e. redo the work AFTER documentating/expert) before you can get compensated.

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Redoing the work before going to Court is not necessary and may be a bad idea.

[ClevelandWasp]

Affidavits are indeed evidence. Thank you. That will be $300.

[Sardo Numspa]

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Affidavits are indeed evidence. Thank you. That will be $300.

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nope, they're not, they're hearsay, 951 So. 2d 939, and "An affidavit is not admissible as independent evidence to establish facts material to the issues being tried since the adverse party has the right, if possible, to be confronted by the witness against him and is entitled to the general protection of the hearsay rule; an affidavit is not admissible as prima facie evidence of the facts it contains because admission for such a purpose would improperly cast upon the adverse party the burden of going forward with the proof." 573 So. 2d 915. if the affidavit falls under a hearsay objection, then they can be used and the ones that primarily deal with allowing affidavits at trial deal with the affiant being unavailable to testify due to death or some other extreme circumstance.

in the three counties where i practice the judges give a ten minute speech before each and every small claims session where they specifically tell all the pro se plaintiffs and defendants that they will not be able to use affidavits or estimates at trial and they can go to the clerks office to issue a subpoena to ensure that they will have a witness present at trial.

i've only heard this speech about 500 times in the past 3 years and i assume its because a million and one pro se plaintiffs in auto mechanic and contractor cases came into court with estimates or affidavits trying to show their damages and it can't come in. if OP wants to win his case, get an estimate and the subpoena the guy you got it from so he can testify at trial

[Ray Zee]

if its the money you want first locate him and try to get it. if not then find if you will get paid if you win. if not forget about it.

if he has something to attach or a business then have him served. he might pay up rather than fight. if you go to court take in the top with you. judges in small claims court do what they think is reasonable not always what the law says. they award to who they think is not lying the most and who they like. if he thinks you got ripped off you likely will win.