PROVO — The moose really should be paying the bill.

But since the animal was taken back to the wild, it hasn't kept in touch or offered to compensate Cassi Elton for the $1,500 damage it caused when it collapsed on her car and shattered her windshield.

Elton's not offended.

Instead, she expected that the state — whose officers tranquilized the moose, which then wobbled over to her car that was parked in BYU's Marriott Center parking lot and fell over — would pick up the moose's tab.

No such luck.

It appears there was a miscommunication between the responding Division of Wildlife Resource officers and Elton and her friend Chris Hair, whose car also was damaged by the woozy woodland creature.

"When he was saying 'he'll take care of it,' (he meant) 'we'll process the paperwork,' " explained Scott Root, DWR conservation outreach manager. "He just wanted to make sure he got all the paperwork done. We're in no position to say if we're going to pay or not, he's a biologist."

Despite the conservation officer's good intentions, the Division of Risk Management made the decision not to pay for either student's damaged cars.

"This case … was evaluated by the state senior claims adjuster, the state's senior claims manager and one of the attorney generals for the state for coverage decision," said Vicki Schoenfeld, public information officer for the Department of Administrative Services. "After all three of them looked and reviewed all the parts of the case, they decided unanimously there was no lawful basis to pay the claims."

It's just one of those strange cases that didn't fit into a category that would merit coverage, she said.

The young bull moose wandered onto BYU campus June 4 and was being corralled by DWR and police officers, who then shot it with a tranquilizer dart. But the moose didn't fall. It ran through a barricade then collapsed on the students' two small cars.

"It's just one of those things," Root said. "Wildlife are unpredictable."

But that's not good enough for Elton.

"It's just strange that the state can cause damage to someone's property, then not pay for it," she said.

Elton compared it to throwing a Frisbee with a friend. Although there's nothing wrong with playing Frisbee, if you break a neighbor's window, you still pay for it.

After word of the moose drama spread, Dave Adams, who owns Adams G/3 Collision Auto Repair in Orem, offered free repairs for both students.

"I realized it was a no-win situation for everybody," Adams said. "The moose was at fault. When I saw the damage on the vehicles, (I knew it would be) a mountain for somebody, but a molehill for me."