Question

Robotman and Adam were old friends. Robotman decided to purchase a bobcat, which is a small piece of earth moving equipment, which could be used for clearing snow from parking lots or performing landscaping work. Robotman decided to purchase a bobcat from Hagar for $20,000.00. Robotman had $5,000.00 for the purchase price and Hagar agreed to be owed the balance of $15,000.00 for a term of one year. A security agreement was registered against the bobcat with the Personal Property Security Registry. Adam was a trained equipment operator. He agreed that he would operate the bobcat for 40% of the gross revenue in all of their contracts. The words ARobotman & Adam Bobcat Services@ were stencilled on the side of the bobcat. After four months of operation Robotman was unable to make his monthly payments to Hagar because all of his income was going into Bobcat repairs. The machine broke down weekly. Hagar had known about the mechical problems of the bobcat but had not discussed them with Robotman, even though Robotman told Hagar that he needed an extremely reliable bobcat. Hagar seized the bobcat for non-payment and had it sold for $6,000.00. He then sued Adam and Robotman for the remaining $9,000.00 owing. Robotman claimed that Hagar had fraudulently misrepresented the bobcat by not telling him of the mechanical problems. Will Hagar be successful in court against Robotman and/or Adam? Please examine all issues, including who his claim would be against.

Answer 1

In my opinion, Hagar will not be successful in court against Robotman and/or Adam because he sold the bobcat to Robotman having known about it's mechanical problems and the repairs that it needed. Even after knowing these problems and Robotman asking Hager to provide him extremely reliable bobcat, he did not fulfil his promise and sold inefficient bobcat to Robotman. Hence all the damages incurred by Robotman due to repair and maintenance of bobcat have to be borne by Hager and he cannot claim remaining $9000 from Robotman for the sale of bobcat since the sale will not be considered as valid as defunct bobcat was sold to Robotman by Hager. Since Hager further sold the bobcat to other party for $6000, hence he cannot claim any money from Robotman and Adam.