I am so sorry this happened. How frustrating.

Tearing out old countertops and installing new ones always carries the risk of damaging an existing tile backsplash. I am surprised that the original contract you signed with them did not have a disclaimer in it that says they do not guarantee there will not be any damage. So nothing on the contract? I am not talking about a damage waiver you would sign off on afterwards.

Can we see a photos of the damage to the backsplash?

How long ago was the original backsplash installed before they damaged it?

If I tore out your countertops, my disclaimer would exempt all damages period and it would be signed in the blood of your first born male child.

You've got a tough case, but if you take it to small claims they may settle. Take whatever you can get, if anything please.

Disappointment is the gap between expectation and reality. The reality is that it's darn near impossible to remove a counter top without damaging the backsplash in the process. Your expectation should have been calibrated--if only by the contractor's verbal explanation prior to the work being performed.

They do not owe you a new splash- as everyone has stated that’s normal when tearing out counters. They should have been more explicit but honestly no one spends thousands of dollars on new counters and keeps an old tile backsplash.

I'm betting you like the new splash much more than the old one.

I'm betting you like the new splash much more than the old one.

You betcha'. Especially if you can get someone else to pay for it.

If you don't want something precious to be damaged during demo, you either get it out of the way or do the demo yourself. Where you might learn that some things, like trying to save a backsplash when replacing counters, are 'darn near impossible'.

And? You are supposed to replace the splash when you replace the counter. I can think of less than a dozen cases where someone kept the same splash after counter replacement. And they all had spare tile to fix the damage of the bottom row. Which they paid a tiler to tackle, after the counter was done.

Your expectations are divorced from reality.

They don’t owe you a dime. You should have expected the backsplash to need to be replaced. That is always the case. Get busy finding something else. You should have been on that from the first idea of any counter redo.

What else is in the contract? What company is it?

Did you discuss that you were intending to keep the backsplash tile? If you did explain it, the contract should have included a provision about it in the contract (example, who would be responsible for repairing damage to tiles).

As already explained in above comments, it is unusual for someone to keep a backsplash when replacing countertops. If a contractor knew that you were keeping your backsplash, I can’t imagine that he/she wouldn’t have explained the likelihood of damage + asked if you had extra tiles available in order to replace the ones that would (not might) be damaged during the removal/installation process.

I would expect that there would be an increased charge if the contractor knew that you were keeping your backsplash + some type of clause explaining how any damage would be handled (who would be responsible for repairing damage).