I just had a plumber in to replace what I thought was a nonexistent overflow gasket. There was actually one there, but it was cut, so he replaced it. When he filled the tub up to be sure it didn't leak, a leak showed up under the tub from a horizontal pipe to the actual drain. Now they have to come back, jackhammer, remove sheetrock, etc to fix this leak (could be $1000 or more depending on how long it takes). There were two guys, the overflow pipe was tight and they did a lot of pushing and grunting to get the gasket in. Is it possible that they somehow broke the pipe when they were pushing and grunting, thus causing the leak? I don't want to "accuse" them if it's not possible, but I don't want to pay for all that if they caused it to happen. They didn't run water or mention leak water until after all the pushing and grunting, so there's no way to know if that problem existed previously. Any insight anyone?

Yes, indeed, there is a good chance they broke the vertical overflow pipe as they were pushing it away from the tub to insert the gasket. However, it should not be such a big deal to fix it - certainly not worth thousand dollars. Let me know how they did. Back to you. Milo