2002 Honda Odyssey Shift Lock Solenoid: Gone thru 2 after T

Had to have transaxle rebuild done at transmission shop affiliated w/our regular (and trustworthy) mechanic. When picked up minivan, couldn't use gearshift because it was locked up. Only way to drive it was by sticking the key into the little slot where the override is located, on the steering column. Mechanic says they drove it from transm shop and they test drove it and had no problem. Said it looked like we would have to have shift lock solenoid replaced, and disagreed when I asked if this was related to the work on transaxle when remove/reinstalled. He said they would not have been working anywhere near the gearshift (or the solenoid) while removing transaxle. We took it home until sched for repl solenoid. During that time, shift lock worked intermittently (sometimes needed override, sometimes didn't)

Arranged to have them replace the solenoid, and they tried to keep cost down for me, as I'm currently unemployed. BTW, before we took it back in for this work, we also noticed a good deal of transm fluid on garage floor, and told them about that also.

Today, went to pick up van after solenoid replace and guess what? Gear shift lock was STILL locked up when I got in to drive it! The mechanic was dumbfounded, as they had driven it and no problems. Going to have to schedule it to for transm shop to look at it again.

As for the transm fluid, he said one of the seals didn't seat properly and transm shop will be taking it in to fix it. (Also, one time while wife driving it, she reported that tach raced one time while driving in neighborhood. Nothing like that repeated, so don't know if there's still prob w/transaxle. That was one of the signs showing it was going bad before the rebuild).

Monday, we're dropping it off at transm shop to be looked over again to troubleshoot/fix. Now, here's my questions:

1. Is there something that the transaxle removal/reinstall could've done to cause shift lock solenoid to fail or just not function? (Ie, short circuit from crossed wire harness, etc.)

2. Would this account for two solenoids failing consecutively?

3. Is it possible that solenoid was not failed to begin with? And something else prevented gearshift from operating, and mistakenly attrib to solenoid? If this is so, is there some way to test the solenoid with multi-meter (ie, continuity, etc.)?

We've never had any problem with the gearshift prior to this transaxle rebuild, and I find it hard to believe that these troubles are completely unrelated to it.