Man ‘should have taken firm’s original offer’

A MAN who took a small claims court action against the firm that supplied his kitchen tiles would have done better to take the offer originally made by the company to settle the matter

That was the view of Judge Gerard Haughton as he granted John Murphy, Ballyboggan, Castlebridge a decree for €1,000 against PK Tiles of Unit 10, Ardcavan Business Park.

The plaintiff told the court that he purchased 44 square yards of floor tiles from PK Tiles and promptly had them laid by Martin O’Keeffe

He reported that within three months they were all scratched and said that the vendor company would not do anything for him when he drew this to their attention.

However, it emerged under questioning by solicitor Colette Culleton that PK had offered to replace all of the tiles. The catch was that they said they would not replace anything else which might be damaged during the course of putting the floor right.

Paul Kavanagh gave evidence as director of PK Tiles, which he told Judge Gerard Haughton had been in business for 21 years.

He made it clear that Mr Murphy’s complaint had been taken seriously, though he reckoned only two of the tiles were badly worn.

Tile suppliers flew from Spain to carry out an inspection. Testing, described by the respondent as independent, was carried out by a firm in the UK.

He felt there was no flaw in the tiles and suspected that the scratching was caused by chair legs.

Nevertheless, the offer to replace and re-lay the floor was made, Mr Kavanagh acknowledged: ‘We offered to fix the issue,’ he told the court.

He reckoned that it would have cost PK €2,000 to do so and Judge Haughton said he was impressed with this offer.

The court found that not all of the tiles were defective but there was clearly a lot of scratching to be seen on some of them.

The plaintiff should have accepted the offer, he observed, as he made out the decree for €1,000.