tamc93 said:
OP approved
I'll try to make it as short as possible.
Civil lawsuit. Happened several months ago. Need to keep some details private to protect my identity, so I'll change some non-essential facts.
Gist of the matter is guy rented bobcat to, allegedly, do some dirt work. At least, that's what he told my client. Said he does this all the time, knows what he is doing, etc. What was really going on was that this so-called crew was using the bobcat to do some tree/brush removal and uprooting. For small stuff WITH the right attachments, that can work but that wasn't part of the rental agreement. Plus, the smaller stuff wasn't what they were doing -- they were trying to take down larger, mature trees and put them into a burn pile. They were essentially using the bobcat for something it wasn't designed for.
As if that wasn't enough, for whatever reason (I guess the piles got too big), they try to move around the
burning wood with the bobcat. You guessed it: due to that and the overall incompetence of the operator, the cat catches on fire! These geniuses had no fire suppression equipment -- no extinguishers, nothing. T
hey attempt to put out the fire by shoveling dirt, including additional burning embers, on the bobcat engine!! The engine sustains serious damage. Had they sprayed this thing with a fire extinguisher -- even one with water -- it wouldn't have been a big issue.
But the fire destroyed the electrical components, the rubber materials, etc.The ****head who rented the bobcat tells my client the engine malfunctioned and caught fire on its own. My client tells me that out of thousands of similar rentals, tens to hundreds of thousands of hours on his rental units -- mostly Bobcats -- that's NEVER happened. These are diesel engines. A Bobcat is a great tool but it doesn't produce the energy/pressure it takes for the diesel to catch on fire absent SERIOUS stupidity. The guy who rented it thinks everyone else is as dumb as he is.
I'll spare you the numbers, but believe it or not, the unit was repaired. We won at trial -- guy didn't even show; hid behind his (weak) lawyers. Judge was almost waiting for me to finish my case so she could award us our damages!