How do I get damages for poor repairs and delay by mechanic shop?

Full question:

My husband is in the marine corp. We relocated to California in March of this year. We have a legal situation that we need advice on. My husband has a 1968 muscle car and he drives his muscle car to work everyday, but it has broken down on him a couple times. So he took it to a car care shop in Virgina Beach to repair it because the owner promises us the car would run like a champ after he finished the work. Before my husband took the car to the shop, his car was appraised at $19,000 in February 2009. The car was in the shop for more than a year. During the time the car was in the shop, someone hit the car from behind. The car got a big dent on the back; which the shop later repaired. In February 2009, the shop promised us several times that it would be ready by February 15, 2009. However, it was not ready until March 10, 2009. The worst thing is my husband couldn't drive the car out of the shop after we paid him $12,000 on it. Because he was unable to repair the car on time and lied to us about it, we reserved a 24' rental truck costing us more than $60 per day to wait around for the car be done for 2 weeks, also the hotels fees that added up to more than a thousand dollars. We then rented a trainer to tow the car to Kansas for my husband 's family to repair. It took the shop in Kansas one month and we paid the shop $13,000 to repair it. The car finally runs good, the mechanic in Kansas mentioned that he had to redo a lot of work that was done from the VA mechanic. We feel like we come out badly with the shop in Virginia. The car is fixed in Kansas, but we are running out of money to get it back to California because it will then cost us another thousand dollars. All my husband wants is to drive his muscle car before he is deployed to Iraq in August 2009. I just feel so bad for my husband because he might not come home from the coming deployment, he has been wounded 4 times in Iraq. Can you help and give us some advise on this matter?

• Category: Contracts
• Subcategory: Breach of Contract
• Date: 04/07/2025
• State: California

Answer:

Any claim you may have relating to repairs will likely be governed by contract law. The terms of your contract with the mechanic will generally determine your rights and obligations as well as those of the mechanic. You should carefully review the terms of the contract with the mechanic to determine your rights and obligations in regard to the repairs. If you wish to use the legal system to resolve your dispute, you may want to review the following general information regarding contract law and breach of contract actions:

Contracts are agreements that are legally enforceable. A contract is an agreement between two parties that creates an obligation to do or refrain from doing a particular thing. The purpose of a contract is to establish the terms of the agreement by which the parties have fixed their rights and duties. An oral contract is an agreement made with spoken words and either no writing or only partially written. An oral contract may generally be enforced the same as a written agreement. However, it is much more difficult with an oral contract to prove its existence or the terms. Oral contracts also usually have a shorter time period within which a person seeking to enforce their contract right must sue. A written contract generally provides a longer time to sue than for breach of an oral contract. Contracts are mainly governed by state statutory and common (judge-made) law and private law. Private law generally refers to the terms of the agreement between the parties, as parties have freedom to override many state law requirements regarding formalities of contracts. Each state has developed its own common law of contracts, which consists of a body of jurisprudence developed over time by trial and appellate courts on a case-by-case basis.

An unjustifiable failure to perform all or some part of a contractual duty is a breach of contract. A legal action for breach of contract arises when at least one party's performance does not live up to the terms of the contract and causes the other party to suffer economic damage or other types of measurable injury. A lawsuit for breach of contract is a civil action and the remedies awarded are designed to place the injured party in the position they would be in if not for the breach. Remedies for contractual breaches are not designed to punish the breaching party. The five basic remedies for breach of contract include the following: money damages, restitution, rescission, reformation, and specific performance. A money damage award includes a sum of money that is given as compensation for financial losses caused by a breach of contract. Parties injured by a breach are entitled to the benefit of the bargain they entered, or the net gain that would have accrued but for the breach. The type of breach governs the extent of damages that may be recovered.

Restitution is a remedy designed to restore the injured party to the position occupied prior to the formation of the contract. Parties seeking restitution may not request to be compensated for lost profits or other earnings caused by a breach. Instead, restitution aims at returning to the plaintiff any money or property given to the defendant under the contract. Plaintiffs typically seek restitution when contracts they have entered are voided by courts due to a defendant's incompetence or incapacity.

Rescission is the name for the remedy that terminates the contractual duties of both parties, while reformation is the name for the remedy that allows courts to change the substance of a contract to correct inequities that were suffered. In order to have a rescission, both parties to the contract must be placed in the position they occupied before the contract was made. Courts have held that a party may rescind a contract for fraud, incapacity, duress, undue influence, material breach in performance of a promise, or mistake, among other grounds.

Specific performance is an equitable remedy that compels one party to perform, as nearly as practicable, his or her duties specified by the contract. Specific performance is available only when money damages are inadequate to compensate the plaintiff for the breach.

Promissory estoppel is a term used in contract law that applies where, although there may not otherwise be an enforceable contract, because one party has relied on the promise of the other, it would be unfair not to enforce the agreement. Promissory estoppel arises from a promise which the promisor should reasonably expect to induce action or forebearance of a definite and substantial character on the part of the promisee and which does induce such action or forebearance in binding if injustice can be avoided only by enforcement of the promise. Detrimental reliance is a term commonly used to force another to perform their obligations under a contract, using the theory of promissory estoppel. Promissory estoppel may apply when a promise was made; reliance on the promise was reasonable or foreseeable; there was actual and reasonable reliance on the promise; the reliance was detrimental; and injustice can only be prevented by enforcing the promise. Detrimental reliance must be shown to involve reliance that is reasonable, which is a determination made on an individual case-by-case basis, taking all factors into consideration. Detrimental means that some type of harm is suffered.

Reasonable reliance is usually referred to as a theory of recovery in contract law. It was what a prudent person might believe and act upon based on something told by another. Sometimes a person acts in reliance on the promise of a profit or other benefit, only to learn that the statements or promises were either incorrect or were exaggerated. The one who acted to their detriment in reasonable reliance may recover damages for the costs of his/her actions or demand performance. Reasonable reliance connotes the use of the standard of an ordinary and average person.