Post Office Damage To Property, Refuse To Pay For Repairs

I am looking for some advice dealing with a legal issue involving a local post office (Location: Montana). I will give some details below, but if more info is needed, do not hesitate to let me know. Thanks in advance for reading this and any assistance!

Our home has a fence bordering a small local post office. Our area gets snow each fall/winter and the fence line is plowed during this time. Additionally, there is a large 18-wheeler style truck that backs into this space twice each day for bulk mail deliveries. There is also customer and employee parking that passes by the fence. Over the years, our fence has been damaged three times by activity on the post office side and until the latest damage either a contractor or the post office paid for the repairs.

As the postal service instructed in the second occurrence, we filed the Federal Tort Claim this time, which has been refused by the US Postal Service Federal Tort Claims Supervisor though approved last time. We responded requesting reconsideration of the claim and were again denied. We were informed that we could file a suit in US District Court within six months (April of this year) to dispute the final denial.

Our main complaint is that the damage occurs during the course of business by the Post Office, regardless if it is by a customer, employee or contractor (the foliage on our property prevents direct access to most of the fence from our side). The last time there was damage, we paid out of pocket to install an additional barrier on the fence to reduce the amount of future damage, which did help in the most recent damage though the fence still needs repairing.

Additional details:

• Repairs are approximately $2,000 and we have quotes from multiple contractors for the work.
• Post Office employees never report the damage though it is visually obvious when they drive in to park.
• Our side of the fence line is covered by large bushes so the only way to see damage, or even directly touch most of the fence, is to be on the post office side.
• The first time there was damage, the delivery driver immediately came to us to coordinate repairs and payment before we even noticed the issue.
• There are no cameras or other tools on the post office side to monitor the fence for damage or record the responsible parties.
• No changes have been made by the post office to prevent damage after prior incidents.
• The latest incident was in summer of 2024 with the process of reporting and filing the initial Tort claim occurring about two months after discovering the damage.
• The Tort refusal was based on their assumption that a contractor caused the damage, though there is no proof of such. The contractor states they did not cause the damage and is refusing to compensate for the damage.

Key Questions

• Is our only legal recourse filing a suit against the US Postal Service in US District Court?
• Are there legal precedents or laws that relate to damage restitution in situations like this?
• When this happens again, should we take different action (i.e., file a different claim than using the Tort Claim process)?