Sally hired a contractor to renovate her kitchen and comes to your office because the contractor backed out of the written contract. Upon asking Sally to explain the whole story, you come to find out that Sally has two LARGE dogs (a Newfoundland named Tiny and a Great Dane named Fang) who she could not afford to board when the work was to be performed.In February, (when the project started) Sally would let the contractors into her home and she'd ask if they could let the dogs out around noon, while she was at work.The contractor (who was an animal lover) was uncomfortable closing the dogs outside all day, even though Tiny may have preferred the cold.

The Contractor backed out of the contract, because he cannot complete the job with all of the dogs in the house. Sally says she invested money into the job already and could not find a different contractor to come in and finish without spending a great deal of extra money.She also says had she known the contractor would not work with the dogs there, she would have found and started with a different contractor (she wasn't looking for a dog sitter but he was unwilling to work with the "gigantic hounds" underfoot....)

After all, he was at the house prior to commencing work and commented on how "beautiful they were" and how much work it must be to have two large dogs in the house.

Clearly, there was no meeting of the minds here. The homeowner did not know the dogs would be an issue as the contractor loves animals; the contractor did not know the dogs would be left in the house on days they'd be working on the site.

What advice would you give the potential client with regard to the now defaulted agreement with the contractor, i.e., does she have any recourse?

Assuming that specific performance isn't an option - the contract won't come back and isn't welcome....,what advice do you have for Sally when she interviews and eventually hires another contractor for the completion of herkitchen?

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