Turkmen v. Katz
Appellant Rahmi Turkmen appeals from a judgment entered following a jury verdict against respondents James R. Katz and his wife Gail Lynn Katz. The jury awarded Turkmen $120,000 in damages for unpaid work for the Katzes that was within Turkmen’s tile contractor license. However, the court ordered that the damages award be offset by $195,425, the amount the Katzes had previously paid Turkmen for construction work, based on the Katzes’ cross-claim seeking reimbursement of the $195,425 because Turkmen was not licensed to perform the work. The net result was that Turkmen was ordered to pay the Katzes $75,425.
Turkmen contends that the damages award in his favor should not have been subject to the $195,425 offset because the Katzes failed to prove at trial that the work for which he was paid fell outside his tile license. He also contends that the court cut off his testimony at trial before he could offer proof of his damages, leading to an award that was too low. Finally, he complains that the court responded improperly to several questions posed by the jury during its deliberations.
We find no error in the court’s management of the trial and find that Turkmen forfeited any objections to the court’s responses to the jury’s questions. However, we hold that the trial court erred in concluding that the Katzes were entitled to be reimbursed for the entire $195,425 they paid Turkmen. We thus reverse the judgment ordering the offset, and remand the matter to the trial court for a new trial on the issue of what portion of the $195,425 should be returned to the Katzes because it was payment for work Turkmen was not licensed to perform or was not work that was incidental or supplemental to his tile work.
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