Need feedback on holding a plumber accountable for damages

[Evans Wright]

Hey team,

I received my owner's statement from my property management company and saw a charge of $1100 for water remediation.  When I inquired about the charge I was told that a plumber went to replace the igniter on the water heater because it kept failing and after he got the unit working again and departed the site, the pressure valve exploded after a short time and began leaking water from the second floor unit and it got down to the first floor.  The tenants called the management company and they hired people to fix the issue.  The plumber then came back and replaced the pressure valve.  There have not been any issues since.

All that being said, I feel like that plumber should be held accountable for those charges and not me since he was the last person to touch the water heater.  The property management company explained to me that they believe he is not liable because when he did the work he never interacted with the pressure valve since it is not located near the igniter that he replaced.  I would love to hear the communities feedback about this situation.  Maybe you have dealt with a similar situation and how did you handle it?

[Matt Devincenzo]

I agree this shouldn't be the first you're hearing about it via a bill...there should have been a prior contact mentioning what was going on, and then filling in details etc. 

That said I'm with the plumber on this one that his scope didn't include anything related to the pressure relief valve. Another issue is that your WH pressure relief should have been drained into something allowing it to make it to a drain or outside etc, not flood inside. So this one is on you not the plumber as far as I'm concerned. Now details matter...if there is some additional context for why he should have replaced it first then maybe I'd change my perspective.