Question

The YMCA contracts with Road Maintenance Inc. to clear roads and driveways during the winter months and to do repair work during summer on its properties in Estes Park and Winter Park. Road Maintenance has been doing this work for over 10 years and has been very responsive to the YMCA’s requests. The YMCA site managers call Road Maintenance to request specific work to be done, and Road Maintenance does the work then bills the YMCA quarterly for work that’s been performed. The YMCA pays the bills within 60 days of receiving the invoices. Occasionally, Road Maintenance will donate its services to the YMCA to receive a tax write off.

While clearing off a remote access road that had recently been patched by YMCA volunteers, Road Maintenance’s plow broke when it hit an unexpected barrier. Road Maintenance bills the YMCA for repair costs to the plow, and the YMCA refuses to pay for it. Neither party can find their original contract to see who is responsible for the repair costs.

QUESTION #1: (1 point)

What tort should Road Maintenance bring against the YMCA?

QUESTION #2: (2 points)

List the elements of the tort you identified when answering Question #1 and apply them to the hypothetical.

QUESTION #3: (1 points)

What contract claim should Road Maintenance bring against the YMCA?

QUESTION #4: (2 points)

List the elements of the contract claim you identified when answering Question #3 and apply them to the hypothetical.

QUESTION #5: (4 points)

Who is most likely to win: Road Maintenance or YMCA? What will be the easiest cause of action for Road Maintenance to prove—the tort or the contract claim? The most difficult? Explain your reasoning.

Answer 1

1- What tort should Road Maintenance bring against the YMCA?

Tort is an act of wrong doing or negligence which will cause damage to another party during the course of agreement actions. In this scenario Road maintenance should bring in the point that a harm has been caused to Road maintenance by negligence.

Negligence tort can be used against YMCA by road maintenance.

2- List the elements of the tort you identified when answering Question #1 and apply them to the hypothetical.

Elements of tort which can be identified from this case are;

1- The damage to the plow might not have happened if YMCA had not patched the road recently and informed Road maintenance about that prior to the clearing process

2- As per the contract, the Road maintenance team was clearing the road and they met an unexpected barrier which was not informed prior and the contract was not covering clearing such scenarios.

3- What contract claim should Road Maintenance bring against the YMCA?

Here Road maintenance should bring in contract claims about damages.

1- Damages – here the negligence of YMCA had caused damages to Road maintenance property. So they can claim for the repair costs to the plow.

4- List the elements of the contract claim you identified when answering Question #3 and apply them to the hypothetical.

Here the elements of contract claim are proximate cause and Damages.

1- Damages – here the negligence of YMCA had caused damages to Road maintenance property – Damage would not have happened if prior notice was given about the patch

2- Proximate cause: Here YMCA could have informed Road maintenance about the patches so that they could have anticipated the issues prior. – Cause of damage is lack of communication and proper notice would have helped both parties.

Here the Tort has been committed and it falls under negligence tort.

5- Who is most likely to win: Road Maintenance or YMCA? What will be the easiest cause of action for Road Maintenance to prove—the tort or the contract claim? The most difficult? Explain your reasoning.

Here Road maintenance is likely to win as there is a damage to the property because of act of negligence from YMCA.

Easiest cause action for Road maintenance to prove is the tort. Because they were not informed about the patch which was done on the road and the damage happened because of negligence of YMCA and they could have avoided this barrier with proper information prior to clearing the road.

The most difficult one will be to prove for claim as YMCA has already rejected it as the damage to the property was not covered or agreed as part of the contract. So it makes it difficult to approve claim for Road maintenance.