YOU HAVE ONLY YOURSELF TO BLAME
I just got back from a week in London. It may sound like I’m bragging, so I won’t mention the day I spent advising Boris Johnson on the Empire after Brexit, my counseling of the Queen on bringing Prince Andrew and Meghan back into the fold, or my reviewing the rehab plans for Big Ben.
The primary reason I mention none of those things is that the reason for the trip was so we could see our two granddaughters, Mabel and Helen. They live in London these day (with our son and daughter-in-law, but once the grandkids arrive, your children become an afterthought).
While there, I rented a car and tried English driving for the first time. That is my segue into today’s topic, the very English common-law tort of negligence.
Negligence is a tort law concept borrowed from the English and a living, breathing description of my adventures in a four-door, manual-shift Skoda. To prove negligence, one either needs a photo of me in the driver’s seat navigating a roundabout, or one must prove three essential elements The negligent party must owe a duty to the injured party, the negligent party must have breached its duty, and as a direct result of that breach, the injured party must have been actually damaged. Surprisingly, most of the litigation on tree-related negligence results from questions of the extent of the duty owed to the injured party.
The bulk of the negligence actions related to trees result from trees or branches falling on people and property. The states are nearly uniform in holding that a property owner who has actual or constructive notice of a defect in his or her trees has a duty to owners of adjoining property and the public who may be passing by to ensure that the tree does not injure persons or property.
Actual notice is fairly self-explanatory. A landowner who has been told that a tree is defective has actual notice. However, constructive notice is much more nuanced. Visual evidence of decay, a history of falling branches, advice of an arborist or tree professional that a tree poses a hazard – all of these may be enough for a court to find that a property owner was on constructive notice of a defect. Some cases have suggested that if a tree professional installs cabling or bracing to support a tree, that fact alone is constructive notice to the landowner of a serious defect in a tree.
Even if evidence of decay or distress is not clear from the ground, some courts have held that landowners have a general duty to regularly inspect trees on their property that may cause damage or injury if they fall. Most states recognize two levels of landowner duty. A rural property owner, because the size of the land holdings are generally larger than in urban areas and because there is a lesser concentration of people and property to be injured, has a duty to inspect that is significantly lesser in scope than the duty of a urban landowner. An urban landowner usually has fewer trees and those have a greater likelihood of causing injury or damage if they fall. Thus, what is an adequate inspection program for a rural landowner may not be enough for an urban property holder.
Generally, before negligence can be determined, the extent of the defendant’s duty to the injured has to be defined. The great illustration can be taken from today’s case:
Sellens v. Christman, 418 S.W.2d 6 (Sup. Ct. Missouri, 1967). Elvin Christman had invited Jim Sellens to go out with him to try out his new chainsaw. They tacked some trees in the woods, an promptly dropped the first one into a notch on a second one. Jim concluded the lodged tree was safe, and was cutting a second tree near it when the whole thing gave way. The lodged tree collapsed on Jim, causing loss of a leg. Elvin was nowhere nearby at the time.
Nevertheless, Jim sued Elvin.
The trial court held that Jim had not established that the accident was Elvin’s fault. In fact, there was no evidence that anyone was at fault for the accident other than Jim himself. But Jim tried to get a leg up by appealing. The case found its way to the Missouri Supreme Court.
Held: Jim didn’t have a leg to stand on.
The Supreme Court upheld the dismissal, but focused more on the duty that Elvin owed to Jim. It held that Jim was an invitee, meaning that Elvin had a duty to take ordinary care to prevent injury to Jim, more care than were Jim a mere trespasser.
Although Jim’s status was an invitee, the Court said there was no breach of any duty by Elvin to make the premises safe for Jim, or to warn him of the danger. “The duty to keep premises safe for invitees applies only to defects or conditions which are in the nature of hidden dangers, traps, snares, pitfalls, and the like,” the Court reasoned, “in that they are not known to the invitee, and would not be observed by him in the exercise of ordinary care. The invitee assumes all normal, obvious, or ordinary risks attendant on the use of the premises, and the owner or occupant is under no duty to reconstruct or alter the premises so as to obviate known and obvious dangers.”
You have only yourself to blame, Jim.
– Tom Root
Tree and Neighbor Law For Homeowners and Professionals 