I run a little league baseball organization. At the beginning of the summer I called a requested a quote from a local sod farm to get sod for two infields at our complex. I wanted to use sod on the infield and then overseed with Bermuda grass seed in the outfields. When they came to quote, an employee not the owner who lives out of town, they told us that we should sprig the fields instead of putting sod down. It would be roughly the same cost to sprig the entirety of both fields as it would be to put sod down on just the infields. Eventually we decided to sprig it and hired them to do so. They can in early July and did the work. When they finished, I was at the fields talking to the employee of the sod farm and told him exactly how I planned on watering the fields. He agreed it was a good plan and nothing else was said about it. A couple of days later another guy and I walked around both fields and were worried that one fields was not done correctly as it seemed like their machine had not properly done the job on only this field. We expressed this concern but were told that there was nothing to worry about. Originally we were told that grass would start coming up in about a week's time and then spread throughout the fields with both fields being mostly flush green grass after a month. Seven days in we expressed concern that we were not seeing any improvement and were told to water the fields more, so we did. It was about 2-3 weeks in until one of the fields started turning green. That field now looks great except for right around the fence where the machine can't get close. The second field never turned green and no grass came up. The sod farm employee stopped answering our calls about 3 weeks after they had planned. Mid-August we went and put down grass seed on that field to hopefully get something to come up. So one field now looks great and the other looks dead except for weeds. This weekend I am going to put out Rye grass seed to hopefully get some grass. We only ever dealt with the one employee at the sod farm, who traditionally handles all of customer stuff.
Now the owner is requesting payment and specifically stated, "It's a shame that the one field did not have the water coverage to make it grow." Which is a lie because both fields have full coverage from our sprinkler system, which definitely works because I put $20k into getting it fixed last fall. The full bill is $6,800. The field that grass grew on is about a 4th the size of the field that has no grass. Would I be in the right to offer to pay $2,500 for the work that was done but not the full amount because we do not feel like they properly did the bigger field? I don't understand why it would work on one field but not the other unless something went wrong in the planting process. Both fields had plenty of water, I can prove that from city water usage. We had almost immediately expressed concern specifically for the field that did not grow. What are your suggestions for what to do in this situation?