Short answer. Generally no. If you supplied the materials and the contractor supplied only labour, the contractor cannot claim payment for work destroyed before it was delivered to you. The Civil Code puts that loss on the worker, subject to narrow exceptions such as your own delay in receiving it.
What the law says
The contractor who has undertaken to put only his work or skill, cannot claim any compensation if the work should be destroyed before its delivery
Civil Code, Article 1718 — Loss Where Contractor Furnished Only Labor. Read the full provision →
The kind of arrangement this covers
This article applies to a specific setup: the contractor undertakes to put in only his work or skill, while you, the owner, provide the materials. That is what people loosely call a labour-only job. Because you own the materials and the worker supplies effort rather than a finished thing bought with their own resources, the law treats the two contributions differently when something goes wrong. Identifying the arrangement correctly is the first step. If the worker also supplied the materials, a different set of rules governs the loss, and this provision is not the one that decides it.
The worker bears the loss before delivery
For a labour-only job, the Civil Code says the contractor cannot claim any compensation if the work should be destroyed before its delivery. Until the work is handed over, the risk sits with the worker, and an owner is not required to pay for a result that was never delivered. So if the piece is destroyed by accident while still in the worker's hands, the default answer to a demand for payment is no. The reasoning is straightforward: the worker's obligation was to deliver a completed result, and that obligation was not fulfilled when the thing was lost.
When the materials are the thing lost
The article also deals with your side of the arrangement, the materials. It provides that if the material is lost through a fortuitous event, the contract is extinguished. A fortuitous event is something neither party could foresee or prevent. When such an event destroys the owner-supplied materials, the contract simply ends: it is not that someone pays damages, but that the project the parties agreed on no longer exists. Practically, the owner loses the materials and the worker loses the labour already spent, with neither able to demand payment from the other over the loss.
The exceptions that can still make you pay
Do not read the rule as an absolute shield. The worker can still claim where there has been delay in receiving it, so if you unreasonably refused or postponed taking delivery, the loss can fall back on you. The worker also keeps the right to be paid where the destruction came from the poor quality of the material you supplied, if that fact was communicated in due time to you. So a warning you ignored, or delivery you dragged your feet on, can change the outcome. Before refusing payment outright, it is wise to check the timeline against these exceptions.