Once again-If you had come home after the break-in and destruction of your garage door, would a response of “Sorry about that-What if we install a new garage door that doesn’t match house color and call it even?”
That’s a very different scenario, involving subterfuge by the contractor. And you can’t choose not to accept paint once it’s on your house. The OP can choose not to accept the door, and could perhaps get reimbursed for the value of the destroyed door. The paint scenario is someone trying to essentially do work on spec and then force payment. That isn’t what happened in the OP.
I’m not saying the OP would definitely be made to pay here. I’m saying it’s possible, and it’s based on exactly what the OP brought up – they wound up with a brand new door, and contractor is going to be out a lot of money. Maybe that’s how it winds up in the end, but it might not be. If the OP takes a hard line no payment stance, they should talk to a lawyer, because it could be costly to do that.
I think trying to negotiate something is a good idea. I also think consulting a lawyer is a very good idea. Particularly to make sure no liens are placed on the house.
What state did this happen in?
On reflection, you could be right. The example doesn’t explicitly state subterfuge, but I guess the “in the middle of the night” element is intended to convey that.
A classic simple example would be where a bank transfers money to your account in error. You have to give it back. Since the contractor obviously just made an error, it’s somewhat analogous. But presumably the contractor would need to demonstrate that OP was unambiguously “ahead” in losing the old door and getting this new door instead, which seems like a high hurdle given the subjective aspects of color & design.
I would encourage the neighbor to have a pool built. You might just get lucky again. 
If it was my garage door, I’d just shrug it off as a stupid mistake and get on with my life. There doesn’t appear to be any malicious intent on the part of any of the parties involved and sometimes wacky things happen. When speaking with the contractor, I would expect them to be somewhat embarrassed and not have any expectation that I would pay. Odds are I’d be happy to cover the cost of painting the door if I felt it was necessary. As long as the contractor is reasonable I’m more than happy to be reasonable as well.
A few years ago we sent my wife’s truck in for repair and the shop ended up doing several thousands of dollars worth of repairs that didn’t end up fixing the problem. The manager said they’d look into it and we left the truck there for the repairs to be completed. The next day they called and said their mechanic screwed up royally and it was a combination of not diagnosing the problem correctly and not paying attention to what my wife said the problem was.
I expected a long drawn out fight but the manager said they’d make the repairs as promised and we wouldn’t be charged for the extra repairs and parts we didn’t ask for. So essentially we ended up with a free transmission out of the deal. I would have thought they would have swapped out the old parts for the new ones, but maybe the old parts were no longer available or doing so would have just meant more labor and it wasn’t worth the effort. Either way I still use them as mechanics because I trust them to fix any problems they create.
On reflection, I also tend to agree about consulting a lawyer - it won’t cost much to give them the facts and get a clear idea on exactly where you stand.
For what it’s worth I imagine if the police were called they’d likely write up a report but not charge anyone with a crime, and would be likely to inform you that further resolution of the issue is a “civil matter” and go on about their day.
Why not simply buy the neighbor the door you want(ed), and have the contractor eat the costs of labor to switch them.
The Contractor has the contract to fall back on - “Neighbor bought you a door!”
The Neighbor has a valid comment that the contractor should have double checked the address before doing the install, but that is on the neighbor as well - he signed the contract. The installers have no idea on the terms of the original contract - they simply have “install door @ address”.
You, of course, don’t ‘owe’ anyone anything - but if it were me, I’d do what I said in the beginning - make the contractor eat the labor - but just get the neighbor whole.
No, but what is the relevance of that scenario? Are you describing coming home to a bunch of junkies just wanting to break a door that got caught and offer to replace the door in exchange for not calling the cops? Or are you describing coming home to find a contractor clearly in the process of accidently replacing the wrong garage door?
My answer is different depending: I’m calling the cops immediately in the former and asking some basic questions of the contractor in the latter to attempt to figure out what’s going on and gauge their willingness to rectify the situation. In the latter case I wouldn’t accept the wrong color door, but I wouldn’t accept it in the case of discovering the new door already installed either. Either way, I’m not calling the cops unless things escalate (e.g. they refuse to leave if I ask them to). It’s clearly not a cop-worthy crime; at most it’s a civil court case. I would not be shocked to hear from any law enforcement folks we have on the board that the police would be somewhat annoyed by this sort of police report and tell you to go pound sand.
What I might do if the contractor isn’t making the right moves towards a satisfactory outcome is contact my insurance company for guidance. But a police report… my god. What an overdramatic response. How embarrassing it’d be to see a grown adult do that for what is clearly a mistake; particularly before they’ve even bothered just talking to the person to get things resolved.
Obviously the latter. You come home, the break-in and destruction has occurred, and they propose to complete the job…but the door obviously doesn’t match the house color-wise. What do you do?
It’s not like filing a police report means a team of CSI experts swoop down on your house, taking plaster tire tracks, foot prints, dog smelling prints, twenty-seven eight-by-ten color glossy photographs with circles, and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was. A cop will show up, write down what you tell him, tell you it’s not a criminal matter, and give you a copy of the report. If nothing else it just gets your side of the matter on record before the contractor can do something hinky like filing a mechanic’s lien.
The OP had no desire to replace his door.
This is what I was going to suggest. Tell the contractor which door you want and you’ll buy it, at his cost. Then he can de-install the current door and install the new one, and then install the correct door at the neighbor’s garage. The contractor would be out the labor costs of removing your old door, installing door #1, de-installing door #1, and installing door #2. You get a new door at a great price, and the neighbor gets his door as well.
Granted, that would be an unbudgeted and unplanned expense, but it would probably satisfy all involved parties.
right - one aspect here is that Nieghbor could (rightfully) claim the current door as his , and tell the contractor to install it at the right address - and this thing gets really ugly.
A person has to have a criminal intent to commit a crime. Removing a door that you believe you’ve been asked to remove is in no way a crime. It is a civil matter. If the OP has no reason to suspect that the contractor did this as anything other than a simple mistake, then it would be, at best, very silly to call the police.
Jesus Christ, I’m glad I don’t live next to some of the folks replying in this thread. Call the police?? Yikes.
I addressed that. I don’t think I’d accept the door. We’d come to some agreement to replace it with an acceptable door. If that doesn’t go well I’d call my insurance company for guidance.
Are you still seriously going to call the cops here? How do you imagine that’s going to help you? “Sir, put down the beige-brown swatch and move slowly towards the truck… nice and easy… okay… now pick up the eggshell white…”, “Oh god Jim, he’s going for the burned ochre!” BLAM BLAM BLAM
Even filing the report is dumb. There’s a ton of evidence showing what really happened. A report saying that you said you didn’t authorize it isn’t adding much to the equation.
That just isn’t true. If a drunk mistakenly goes into the wrong house in the middle of the night and climbs into bed, is she/he legally in the clear? If a person mistakenly(or not mistakenly) believes the President has given the o.k. to break into government property and physically threaten members of Congress, and that Presidential authority makes it legal, is that person legally in the clear?
You are very wrong - see Strict Liability.