"he said the outside unit would have to dry off and said it would start cooling in about 20 minutes and then he left"

This statement gives me the impression he was trying to leave quickly before you realized he may have done something wrong. The fact that the condenser was wet does not affect its ability to provide cooling to the house. If that were true, then your AC would never work when it rains!

This is too much of a coincidence in my opinion. Was the compressor hot when he doused it with cold water? I have never heard of this happening. Perhaps others may comment.

Mike, the unit had been cooling throughout the night and the home was cool when the tech arrived (around 8:am). So I imagine that the compressor was somewhat hot.

All of this is mighty suspicious that tech caused problem. It will be very difficult though for you to prove negligence.

Document and call dealer service mgr if not the owner.

IMO

It does seem like an odd coincidence for sure. But I can attest that I've ran water directly on compressors that were so hot you could fry an egg on in order to get the overload to reset and never seen one damaged before.

The power to the unit; both 230 & 24 volt should have been shut-off; the unit should have been allowed to dry for some time before power was turned back on.

Compressor terminals ought to be examined for resistance as many tend to get extremely overheated due to poor connections, which could melt the plastic plug & then short to the refrigerant leak causing a plug blowout..

It appears there might have been a short between the 230-volt compressor terminals or, there may have been a lot of resistance at one of the terminal causing it to short to the compressor body.(?)

IMO, I believe the service Tech somehow cased the terminals to short out blowing the terminal plug.

The shorting may have been internal & therefore, not the service person's fault.

An analysis of past failures of hermetically sealed terminals leads to the conclusion that undesirable venting or blow-out of the terminals occurs because of several factors:

(1) Very high currents passing through the terminal due to major shorts or contamination.

(2) The high currents and/or contamination cause very high temperatures and arcing over the internal surfaces of the terminal.

(3) In the case of terminals utilizing glass-to-metal seals, the very high current induced temperatures cause the glass seals to become more conductive and thereby accelerate the temperature build up until the physical strength and integrity of the seal is explosively lost.

(4) In the case of so-called "soft-seal" terminals wherein the terminal pins are sealed using various distortable dielectrical materials, the seal is gradually arced away until failure results.

You said "They took the cap with them when they left". By cap,are you refering to capacitor? If so,that was likly the point of short circuit causing the capacitor to rupture and is why they took it. I believe the problem was caused by the tech. The company repersentive's asertation that there was no way they could be responsible makes it look like it will take a battle before they take responsibility. I hope you can afford to replace the unit now and fight it out later.

Thanks everybody for the info, udarrell,it's hard to tell but it looks like there may be some arching around one of the three pins and it also looks like the seal between the 3 conductor plug and the metal compressor housing is torn loose. Are the high currents that you are referring to caused by a faulty compressor or by external wiring issues? Klem1, yes, the capacitor was missing. The tenant said that the guy had it in his hand when he left. I guess I can now rule out spraying cold water on the compressor causing compressor damage but can I rule out the possibility of compressor damage caused by something happening around the capacitor?

Based on what you told us,it apears opinions lean toward the damage being the result of "somthing" the tech did. That is about all that you can expect from us,opinions. If you plan to persue the company in repairing the unit, it's up to you to find one or more local experts to examine the unit and talk with the tenant. If the expert(s) feel there is evidence the unit was damaged by the tech,that in it self will not help other than if you take legal action. In Texas,a Justice of Peace usualy hears cases for less than $5k and both sides normaly give thier side of the issue without an attorney repersenting either side. Cost of filing is about $75. If you have a similar option,you have a pretty strong case "if" you prove the unit worked well up to the minute the tech looked at it and failed emediatly during or following what ever he did. "And" he took the capacitor when he left. (BTW,was there a replacement capacitor on unit or was the capacitor missing when the ruptured compressor was discovered?) Either is admission of fault if you can prove it. Ask your local expert if he agrees that a compressor can be severly overloaded with liquid refrigerant as the result of cooling the condenser to the point refrigerant is not expanding into gas as it makes it's way through the system.

Klem1, the capacitor was removed and was not replaced. The outside unit had the access cover put back in placed but when the cover was removed all that was seen was the empty capacitor holding clamp and the wires hanging loose.

The missing capacitor nails the tech as a liar in saying it would start cooling in 20 minutes. That is all you need to prove.

I hope you took pics of there being no capacitor and loose wiring. Tech should have never left it that way with the ability for it to power up if he was going after a replacement. Never energized a system like that but if 2 of 3 leads were hot and the loose one was touching the side of the cabinet, I would think it would have tripped the breaker before it blew the pins. Sounds like a rookie worked on it.