Stand firm and confident.... Tell 'em to take it to court. They have no grounds on the arguement they gave you. Thier Engineer should have set the system up with delayed start, and it would've happened at power failure the same way. And most motors will withstand in-rush and voltage sag with no real problems, it would have to be extreamley sever.
However, if the units were started empty, or out of rotation,(if 3 phase) they might have you, if you were the one who turned them on initially. Or did a service/panel change and changed rotation... As a rule, I never start new AC units, for that reason. (A leaky system, or out of rotaion unit will "cause' compressors to burn out and A/C Units to malfunction.") I check rotation at the disco (with a meter, not the unit. I have the old mechanical type simular to this one:http://www.hotektech.com/StST109D01.htm ) install the fuses, and leave it off for them to turn on. 99% of the time rotation is good for the unit, sometimes the unit is wired wrong, and they call me back, and they get charged for the trip, only to find that one motor goes one way, and another the other. And, if they start it, and it leaks (burns the compressor), it's thier problem!
