Federal Steel & Wire Corp. v. Ruhlin Construction Co.

The key issue in this case is whether Ruhlin, as the contractor for the bridge repair work, had a duty to maintain its job site in such a *173way as to protect against the vandalism that caused damage to Federal’s property located beneath the bridge. For the reasons which follow, we hold that reasonable minds could have determined that Ruhlin had a duty toward Federal to take measures to protect against vandalism, and thus we affirm the court of appeals.

As a threshold to our inquiry, we note that in order for a trial court to grant a directed verdict pursuant to Civ. R. 50(A), it must construe…