Tree and Neighbor Law Information - Nationwide
Arboriculture law, also known as tree
law, has a significant impact on the shaping of American communities. We help people understand the rights and responsibilities that go along with owning, managing and enjoying trees, parks and natural areas. We help people access tree law and neighbor law information throughout the United States. This information is intended to help individuals, utility companies, certified arborists, consulting arborists, and others to manage their responsibilities in tree law. Tree and neighbor law affects everyone from property owners with overhanging trees to urban foresters responsible for maintaining a healthy and safe tree system in their community.
Case of the Day for May 16:
A county park had a contract with Green View — a nonprofit company with the laudable goal of putting our shiftless senior citizens to useful work like, say, cleaning up parks — to maintain the grounds. This is a good thing. Otherwise, retirees with their pants drooping to show their underwear and their “tatts” and funny flat-brimmed baseball caps worn sideways on their heads, just hang around and sride their little electric carts up and down streets and … you know what trouble they can be.
Green Way’s people were busy staying out of trouble when a tree branch broke off a tree and struck a park patron during a summer storm. Being aware that branches never break off in storms unless someone is negligent, the injured woman sued the county and, for good measure, the old people, too. She argued that the elderly working for Green Tree had a duty to inspect the park for branches that might fall off in storms, and they had been too preoccupied with talking about their regularity to carry out their obligations.
In depositions, the Green View people admitted to looking for dead trees, but they explained that the county employees were responsible for removal of dead trees. At least one deponent probably called the plaintiff a “young whippersnapper” as well, we suspect.
The young whippersnapper was, to use a legal term, whippersnapped. The court ruled that Court ruled that Green View’s contract with the county nor its job descriptions for its workers included any duty to inspect the trees or warn of their dangers. The county employees — who were immune from suit, if you’re wondering with the old folks at Green View were being picked on to begin with — all agreed that it was the county's duty to inspect trees and warn of dangers.
The injured plaintiff couldn’t find a duty flowing to her from Green View. Without the duty, there could be no negligence.
Senior citizens humor aside, it is this kind of litigation — and the legal fees Green View undoubtedly had to shoulder to defend an action for which there was no factual basis — that drives beneficial programs like this one to provide meaningful work and activity for seniors out of business. While an injury like the one the plaintiff suffered was lamentable, the reason branches fall in summer storms is fairly well understood. Sometimes stuff happens, and suing anyone who happened to be nearby seldom makes it better.
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Arboriculture law varies from
state to state. Tree law issues vary from adverse possession and boundary line encroachments to dangerous trees and limbs and improper trimming to maintaining nuisances. These issues may be handled very differently in California than they are in Florida. Since 1975, we have worked to provide people with the tree law and neighbor law information they need to work through liability concerns, disputes, and other legal requirements that attend managing trees and liivng in harmony with neighbors.
We provide our members accurate and timely information about arboriculture law in each of the 50 states, with reference to the cases and statutes in which the law is established and applied. Check out the latest information
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We handle every issue connected to tree law and neighbor law. From serving as expert witnesses and assisting consulting arborists to provide accurate testimony, to tree removal matters and dangerous instrumentality questions, we provide the information and professional service you need. Contact us today if you have a question concerning tree law or neighbor law.
We serve clients throughout the United States for all of their tree and neighbor law needs.
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