Lyon court denies €240 cabinet-door refund despite finding repainting work incomplete

The Tribunal judiciaire de Lyon denied Élise Perrin’s request for a €240 refund from Mathieu Delmas for unfinished cabinet repainting, although it found that the agreed work included the doors and that they had been left unpainted. No payment was ordered.

The dispute turned on two different questions: what Delmas had promised to paint for €480, and what the unfinished portion was worth. Perrin established the first, but did not provide a supported valuation for the refund she sought.

The accepted quote was the strongest evidence of the agreement. Its description covered preparation and repainting of the cabinet, without limiting the job to the body or excluding the doors. The narrower receipt wording did not establish that Perrin had accepted a change in scope.

The court accepted Perrin’s consistent account that the doors were returned unpainted. Although there was no photograph or independent confirmation, there was no contrary observation either. Delmas’s varying explanations for excluding the doors lacked supporting records. Full payment did not prove that the work was complete or that Perrin had agreed to a narrower job.

But proof of incomplete performance did not establish its monetary value. Perrin acknowledged that the quote assigned no separate price to the doors and that she had no calculation showing they represented half the work. Delmas’s assertion that they were only a tiny fraction was equally unsupported.

Applying the requirement that a remedy match the proven harm, the court declined to guess at a refund. It found neither €240 nor another specific amount established by the evidence.

Perrin argued that doors were part of the cabinet described in the accepted quote. She maintained that a later receipt referring only to the cabinet body could not narrow the original promise. She sought half the price as a partial remedy, while acknowledging that this was not an itemized valuation.

Delmas maintained that he understood the price to cover the cabinet body alone. His submissions referred to limits on his equipment and expertise, an alleged warning about the doors, and his account that Perrin intended to replace them. He also relied on her full payment and challenged the size of the refund.

The court did not find that Perrin had agreed to replace the doors or that Delmas had given an effective warning excluding them.

Perrin paid €480, and Delmas completed preparation and painting of the cabinet body. The dispute arose over whether that price also covered the doors. The accepted quote contained no itemized breakdown.

The ruling leaves a clear distinction between the contractual finding and the financial outcome: Delmas successfully resisted the refund claim, but the court did not find that he had completed the agreed work. Its decision was limited to the claim and evidence presented.