Hello all, so a friend of mine took motorcycle fairings to a place called JJ autoworks, he wanted them painted. So this guy (owner) James Thomas I think was his name, said it would be 300 to paint my buddy's plastics and it would take 1-3 days. A week later he still did not have his plastics and the guy was BSing him, ignoring him ect. He just yesterday night (at 11pm dumb I know right) finally met up with the guy after he filed a police report and such. The guy lost a front plastic piece valued at 350 bucks but gave him the other parts, the quality was horrible to say the least. I told my friend to call the police to meet with him for this exchange as the guy threatened him via text, the police officer ignored the proof of threat and evidently made my friend pay the guy in full, saying that even if the guy put one drop of paint he had to pay the guy. My question is, what can he do, we are military so will jag help out? I am writing this for him as he is straight from Puerto Rico lol. I greatly appreciate your help guys, hopefully he will join the 2ahawaii team.
#1 - The Cops can't make your friend pay anything. If he listened to them, that was his mistake.
#2 - This isn't a situation for the Cops to start with.
This is a civil matter. Pay the filing fee ($35) and signature required mailing fee ($16.50) OR hand deliver the summons (anyone over 18 can do it and sign a paper saying when it was served.
Set a court date, get ALL your evidence together, including pictures of the fairings before the work started. Hopefully there is a work order from JJ's saying what was requested.
Tell the judge what happened. If the company sends someone on court day, they can tell their side. The judge will determine the cost of what he's out, so have estimates for replacement parts.
Also, have estimates from 2-3 other businesses saying IN DETAIL what they would charge you to redo everything right. The judge can order JJ's to pay another shop to fix / finish the work!
Since you took the item to JJ's, he didn't steal it. But if parts are missing, they have to replace them with parts in the same or better condition.
All civil cases are filed on Alakea St at the First Circuit Court. He'll need to look up what jurisdiction the defendant or his shop are in and put that on the filing. That's the courtroom location where the case will be heard.
It's a little of his time, a day in court, and a little leg work to get estimates. But, if he gets the judgement, he'll get whatever makes the fairings the way he wanted plus fees reimbursed.
Remember, the shop has a contract to deliver the fairings with the work he asked for and at a level of workmanship most reasonable shop owners and customers would expect. If that means he has to pay another shop to do it, since there's no way he can trust JJ will do it right at this point, then that's what he'll have to do.
I'm not a lawyer, but I just went through small claims court myself (as a plaintiff).
