Phone Repair shop gave me back a broken phone
Louisiana Jul 25, 2026
Location: Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Hi everyone, hoping you can help me figure out if I have a decent small claims case. What happened was, I called a repair shop which has one guy who's the owner. I asked if he could repair my Samsung Galaxy Fold 7's front screen issue, he said yes. When I brought the phone in for repair, the front screen was working/lighting up, it just had a big gash in it where my recliner chair had pressed a crack into it. He said it would take him 1 to 1.5 hours. I paid half the cost of the repair up front and wasn't shown any contract or anything to sign. When I checked my email when I got home, I had a contract with fine print that I didn't sign that waived him of liability if he damages the phone further. The contract was not signed by me, and it was sent at the same time as my receipt. There was no verbal agreement besides him saying he could fix the phone. I returned 2 hours later and the phone was not fixed. He gave it back to me with the original screen on, and the original screen was no longer working. He told me he couldn't get the new one working, likely due to a software issue with calibration. I asked why the old screen doesn't work then, he told me it was likely a calibration software issue. He told me to return the next day and he'd spend more time working on it. I brought it back the next day at noon and returned at 6PM. He still hadn't fixed the issue and he had the new screen on it. I tried to help him trouble shoot if it was a software issue, but it had become clear to me it was a hardware issue, because both the old screen and the new screen no longer worked. I asked him to glue the new screen on so I had a functioning phone and I paid him the remaining cost of the screen and half the original labor cost he requested so I could get out of there and have my phone as I need it to get in to things for work. Do I have grounds to sue him for the fair market value of the phone when I originally brought it in, and my money back if he doesn't respond to my demand letter?
