Not really a service call but it was one of those really bad clients that still makes me mad just thinking about him. At the end of a particularly nasty design build job, where my client lied, lied, lied through his filthy yellow teeth through the whole job, he decides to not pay my last draw or my retainage because as he puts it I am “guilty of several design deficiencies”. Things like he “thought” the switch bank for the warehouse lights were going to be on another wall, or he expected there to be more receptacles in his office…ect ect. Never mind I had a set of plans that he signed off on, he sat there in an arbitration meeting and said since he did not know how to read plans it did not mean anything.
Then in the arbitration meeting he as the Gaul to say, “It’s my job to make sure you don’t make any money”. Both the mediator and I were completely shocked, and then the mediator asked, “It’s the electrician entitled to a fair profit?” to which the owner said, “Not at my expense.” This was the point I walked out of the meeting and called my lawyer, it turns out he did have the right to hold my retainage until we worked out our differences but the judge was not impressed with him also holding my last draw and when the profit comment came out in the arbitration minutes, I got my money and legal fees, but I still lost money on the job.
The GC on the project took a different route and tried everything they could to please this jerk, and were out there for 3 months making changes and doing asinine punch list items like cleaning his roof, mowing the lawn and re-striping his lot 4 times. He even made them pay his electric bill for the last three months they were out there doing his never ending punch list. They finally had to cut him off and sue him too.
Last edited by ITO; 12/14/07 12:16 AM.
