Case of the Day – Monday, August 26, 2024

Posted on August 26, 2024 by TLRoot tagged.

MR. NATURAL

There was an era – back in a time when giants roamed the land – in which a landowner had no duty to protect anyone else from harm resulting due to the natural condition of the land. The judicial thinking was that everyone took the land the way they found it. There’s a century-old oak on the place, and it dies? Well, trees grow and then they die. If it happens to fall on old Zebediah’s cabin next door, that’s just one of those acts of God.

The concept made a certain amount of sense when the land was rural, and no one did much landscaping around the cabin. But as time passed, courts found themselves trying to determine whether that sweet gum that fell on the random horse-drawn wagon passing by had been planted by human agency or just had happened to grow there on its own. Time marched on, the horse gave way to a lot of horsepower, and courts abandoned the “natural condition” rule. Instead, they simply held that a landowner has a duty of reasonable care over all of the conditions of his or her premises, no matter what their origin.

Samara – a botanical term for “whirligig.”

There were a few reasons for the courts’ change of heart. First, if a landowner had a duty to take reasonable care of his or her premises, there was no rational basis for limiting that duty to vegetation that had not been planted by the landowner or those who had owned the place before. After all, when we were kids, we used to break samaras off the backyard maple tree and use them in whirligig contests. Under the old standard, if one of the samaras we dropped during our game took root and grew into a magnificent sugar maple, our folks would have been responsible for the tree. If the wind dropped the same samara, and it took root without our help, the old rule would have absolved our parents of any liability if the tree decayed and then fell on the neighbor boy (an outcome that we, who had been long afflicted by the obnoxious kid next door, would have cheered).

Second, the times, they were a-changin’. America was becoming more urban, and progress demanded that people living in closer proximity to each other with more developed streets and highways, assume more responsibility for injury to each other. Most parcels of property had become smaller – home plots in towns and cities rather than 40-acre and up farms – and the burden placed on landowners to inspect and maintain their premises became less even as the harm that their negligence could cause became greater. The utility and importance of modern roads and the cars and trucks that used them argued for a more responsible approach.

All of that leads to a case like today’s decision, an Indiana decision that asks the philosophical question: If a tree falls in the forest and hits a car, does it sound like a lawsuit?

That’s certainly the question Stan Valinet was pondering after a tree standing in his forest fell onto Ann Eskew’s car back in 1987.

Robert Frost admitted that “whose woods these are I do not know.” But Stan Valinet knew. The woods in Clay Township near 106th and Spring Mill Road were his, and – like most reasonably prudent absentee landowners – Mr. Valinet would occasionally drive through Clay Township to inspect his property. He especially admired a massive oak tree, almost two centuries old, growing about 28 feet from the edge of Spring Mill Road.

One dark and stormy December night, Ann Eskew was driving by this very tree, when 60-mph winds blew the mighty oak onto her car, seriously injuring her. It turned out that the tree had been dead for at least three years, and had been showing signs of decay for at least 8 years before that.

Even in 1991, the Indiana rule held that rural landowners were not liable for physical harm caused to others outside of the land by a natural condition of the land. Mr. Valinet argued that the oak tree had always been there, and its falling on Ms. Eskew – while regrettable – had nothing to do with him.

The Indiana Supreme Court ruled that, regardless of whether the old oak tree was a natural condition of Mr. Valinet’s land or not, he could be liable to Ms. Eskew if his land was located in an area with sufficient population density, and whether the seriousness of the danger is weighed against the ease with which Mr. Valinet could have prevented it. Finding the facts needed to determine the answers to these questions was a job for the jury.

Valinet v. Eskew, 574 N.E.2d 283 (Supreme Court of Indiana, 1991). Stanley Valinet owned wooded land in a residential area of Clay Township, Hamilton County, Indiana, near the intersection of 106th Street and Spring Mill Road. He lived in Indianapolis but testified he would occasionally drive through Clay Township to inspect his property.

Valinet’s land included a large oak tree, perhaps almost 200 years old with a 48” diameter trunk. The tree stood 28 feet from Spring Mill Road. On December 15, 1987, Ann Eskew was driving by the property during a windstorm, when the tree fell onto her car, seriously injuring her. It turned out that the tree had been dead for three years, and had been showing visible signs of decay for eight years before that.

Eskew sued. Valinet argued that the 200-year-old oak was a natural condition of the land, and he was not liable for natural conditions of the land. The jury found him liable to Eskew, and he appealed, first to the Court of Appeals (which agreed with the jury), and then to the Indiana Supreme Court.

Held: The Supreme Court decided that Indiana would follow the general statement of law set out in the Restatement of Law. Restatement (Second) of Torts § 363 provided that while a possessor of land would not be liable for physical harm caused to others outside of the land by a natural condition of the land, if the land is in an urban area, the possessor is liable to people “using a public highway for physical harm resulting from his failure to exercise reasonable care to prevent an unreasonable risk of harm arising from the condition of trees on the land near the highway.”

The Supreme Court acknowledged that the old rule had been no liability for natural conditions on land. That rule, however, had arisen at a time when the land was largely unsettled and the burden imposed on a landowner to inspect was thought to exceed the benefit to society of preventing possible harm to passersby. However, the Court observed, a line of cases had developed since then in which courts imposed a duty on landowners in more heavily populated areas to inspect trees to try to prevent their posing an unreasonable risk of harm to passing motorists. The rationale for imposing the duty on urban landowners is that the risk of harm to highway users is greater there, and the burden of inspection on landowners is lighter.

The Court agreed that the modern approach made more sense, but it underscored that whether the land was in an area of sufficient population density to invoke the rule requires a factual consideration of factors like land use and traffic patterns. Also, whether the landowner exercised reasonable care would require the jury to weigh the seriousness of the danger against the ease with which it could be prevented. The Court noted that a landowner need not continually inspect his or her property for natural dangers, but sometimes fulfilling the owner’s duty to passing motorists “might reasonably require periodic inspections to be sure that the premises do not endanger those lawfully on the highway.”

– Tom Root

Case of the Day – Friday, August 23, 2024

Posted on August 23, 2024 by TLRoot tagged.

THOSE DOG-GONE COVENANTS

More and more home developments deliver to their residents not just houses, but a particular ambience, one which remains free of eyesores like sheds, clotheslines, and even colors of exterior trim and paint that are deemed outside the color scheme of the place. These restrictions are often contained in the deeds conveying ownership of the homes. And quite often, the restrictions begin to be violated before the ink is dry.

Many of the violations are slight, not worth the time of the neighbors or associations charged with enforcing the restrictions. But someone usually pushes things too far, and then defends himself or herself in court by complaining that Joe Doaks or Jane Doe down the street violated the same restriction, too, and no one complained about it.

In today’s case, an Ohio dog trainer tries the same excuse when the homeowners’ association tries to shut down his obedience school.

It’s like complaining to a cop that everyone is speeding, making his act of stopping you somehow … well, unfair. Like President Carter told us once, “Life is unfair.” And so is selective enforcement. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t do it.

Here, the Court told Marchus that what mattered wasn’t whether other people were getting away with violating the covenants. What mattered was whether there was a “substantial value” to the restriction which should be protected. Where substantial value could be found, equity will enforce a restrictive covenant. No matter who else is violating it.

The guy down the street is selling on eBay for a living? Once a day, he loads his pickup truck with small boxes and goes to the post office? There’s probably no “substantial value” to be served by enforcing the prohibition. But Mr. Marchus’s baying hounds? Customers and their masters were driving in and out all day long on the private road? The other property owners were worried about wear and tear on the road, the congestion, and liability for accidents. Those concerns were legitimate.

The Court refused to let the neighborhood go to the dogs.

Rockwood Homeowners Assn. v. Marchus, 2007-Ohio-3012, 2007 Ohio App. LEXIS 2766, 2007 WL 1731621 (Ct. App. Lake Co., June 15, 2007). Rockwood Homeowners Association consists of the owners of ten individually owned tracts of land on Girdled Road in rural Lake County, Ohio. Each owner has a primary residence on the property. The residences are accessed by Rockwood Lane, a paved, private road running off Girdled Road.

The developers drafted specific land use restrictions which were attached to each deed, restrictions intended to preserve the rustic character of the land while permitting property owners to operate a home-based business without detracting from the rural atmosphere. Section I(A) of the Declaration of Restrictions provides that “no commercial or institutional activity shall be conducted on these lots, which is not wholly contained within the residential dwellings or which causes damage to the private gravel drive by heavy vehicles.” The Bylaws for the Homeowners Association incorporate the restrictions.

Over the years, various owners operated home-based businesses from their Rockwood Estates residences, including a pest control business, a security systems business, a log home business and a tree maintenance business. In September 2001, one owner, Dick Marchus, built a 60′ x 80′ building to be used as a dog training facility. After it was done, his wife ran her dog training business in the new outbuilding, conducting one class on Monday and two classes per day from Tuesday through Saturday. While some attendees would arrive with two or three dogs, she limited the commercial vehicle traffic to ten cars per class.

Almost immediately, the Association sought an injunction to keep Marchus from continuing the operation of the commercial activities from the outbuilding on the grounds that the activity violated the covenant. The Marchuses answered and counterclaimed. At trial, the Association argued the Marchus’s business was in violation of the restrictions. Marchus admitted the activities were not contained within the residential covenant, but he argued the restrictions had been waived or abandoned by the Association’s failure to enforce the restrictions against the past violations of other property/business owners. The trial court granted the injunction, and Marchus appealed.

Held: The trial court’s injunction was affirmed. The Court of Appeals noted that restrictive covenants on the use of property are generally viewed with disfavor. However, this disfavor may be overcome by evidence of a plan or scheme into which the restrictions are incorporated and notice of that plan or scheme. A plan like the Rockwood one, designed to maintain the harmony and aesthetic balance of a community, will often be upheld where the restrictions are reasonable.

The evidence indicated the restriction was drafted with the intent of maintaining the bucolic atmosphere of the development and prohibiting increased traffic from entering and exiting the development. The Court said the restriction was uniform and applied to all property owners in the development. When the evidence was viewed as a whole, the Court said, it concluded the restrictions and the development to which they pertained were premised upon a general plan or scheme.

The evidence also showed that Marchus had notice of the restrictions. Consequently, the Court found that the restriction was valid and enforceable. As for waiver or abandonment, the Court said, the test was whether, under the circumstances, there remained a substantial value in such restriction which should be protected. Where there was a substantial value to the dominant estate remaining to be protected, equity will enforce a restrictive covenant.

Even with the Marchuses' restricting classes to only ten vehicles (leading to dog carpools, no doubt), it was still too much for the neighbors ...

Even with the Marchuss’ restricting classes to only ten vehicles (leading to dog carpools, no doubt), it was still too much for the neighbors …

Here, the Court found, various residents expressed concerns they held since Greta Marchus opened the business. Increased traffic created congestion and destroyed the rural atmosphere of the development. Because the residents were responsible for the upkeep and maintenance of their private drive, some worried about the increased repair cost resulting from the wear and tear. Some were concerned about being exposed to liability if any of the Marchuses’ customers happened to be injured on the private road. The Court found that the concerns expressed were legitimate and rationally related to the appellants’ violation of the covenant, and thus, there was still a substantial value in the restriction.

As for acquiescence, the evidence didn’t show that prior businesses operated anywhere but in the owners’ residences, which was permitted by the restrictions.

– Tom Root

Case of the Day – Thursday, August 22, 2024

Posted on August 22, 2024 by TLRoot tagged.

WHAT KIND OF GUY WOULD SHOOT A DOG?

The crotchety old landowner should have known that he was good and screwed as soon as he got sued for shooting his neighbor’s hunting dogs. If he didn’t, he sure knew his goose was cooked when the Mississippi Supreme Court started its opinion with this:

“Many men, including this writer, feel that a person who has never seen squirrels jump from limb to limb in the deep swamp on a frosty Fall morning; or has never heard a wild turkey gobble in April or seen him strut during mating season; or has never watched a deer bound through the woods and fields, or heard a pack of hounds run a fox, or tree a coon; or has never hunted the rabbit, or flushed a covey of quail ahead of a pointed bird dog; or has never angled for bass or caught bream on a light line and rod, or taken catfish from a trotline and limb hook; has never lived.”

And screwed he was. To be sure, he had a real evidentiary problem, one that comes up all too often. A defendant knows there are no eyewitnesses, and he (or she) happily invokes what is generally known as the Bart Simpson defense: I didn’t do it, no one saw me do it, you can’t prove anything.”

The defense didn’t work all that well for Bart, either.

The hunter’s dogs had run onto I.C. James’ place, and old I.C. (perhaps standing for “Incorrigible Curmudgeon”) didn’t think much of it. So he shot the dogs. And that, as they say, was an unfriendly act.

Old I.C. told Buddy Mabus, the dogs’ owner, that they had run onto his land, so he shot ‘em, and left ‘em “in a bad way.” He acted almost as though he was proud of what he had done. Well, the “mean old S-O-B” act might have given I.C. some visceral pleasure at the time, but it sure didn’t play well before a jury.

Unsurprisingly, by the time the case got to a jury trial, I.C. James had gotten his story straight. He never said he left the dogs in a bad way. In fact, he told the jury the dogs had killed some of his waterfowl, but he didn’t tell Buddy or his son that because they’d have just denied they owned the dogs. Apparently, I.C. James had found out by the time of trial that he didn’t have the right to kill the animals just because they had wandered onto his land, unless — and this is a big “unless” — they had killed some of his poultry. All of a sudden, that was his story.

I.C. figured he had the case licked. After all, no one could say the dogs hadn’t killed the ducks. The evidence against him was circumstantial at best. And we all know that circumstantial evidence is no good, something we learned at the Hollywood School of Law.

Except that circumstantial evidence is good evidence, and a jury is entitled to rely on it. In fact, nothing requires a jury to check its common sense at the courtroom door. This jury didn’t. It knew James’ “they killed my ducks, but I just didn’t mention that until now” recitation of events was nothing but — pardon the pun — a “woof” story. The Mabuses testified the dogs ran onto James’ property, gunshots came from that general direction, James then told them he had shot the dogs (but didn’t mention any dead ducks), and later, one dog turned up wounded and three others didn’t come home at all.

James argued all the way to the Mississippi Supreme Court that the jury had to find for him (or, for that matter, the trial court had to overrule the jury in a procedure known as “judgment n.o.v.”) because no one could disprove his statement that the dogs had killed some ducks. Or, as Bart put it, “I didn’t do it, no one saw me do it, you can’t prove anything.”

The jury thought otherwise, and the appellate court respected that.

Lesson: Don’t go shooting someone’s dogs. It’s not nice.

This is circumstantial evidence that a woman with a child in a stroller happened by here (and that it had rained shortly before that time).

James v. Mabus, 574 So.2d 596 (Supreme Court of Mississippi, 1990). Buddy Mabus lives on a farm where he and his son, Terry, raise dogs which they use to track and run deer. On a cold morning in late November, Terry and Buddy — planning to hunt deer — turned their dogs loose about two hundred yards north of Buddy’s dog pen. The dogs jumped a deer and headed north towards I.C. James’ property, about two miles from where the dogs were turned loose. James had his land posted, and Buddy knew James didn’t allow hunting on his land.

At least two of their dogs ran onto James’ land. James said as stopped to open the gate to his pasture, he heard hunting dogs south of his place heading east. He listened for five or ten minutes and then saw his geese flying across his lake and heard his ducks making noise. He grabbed his rifle from behind his truck seat, pointed it out the window of the truck and drove through his pasture to the lake where he saw two dogs attacking his ducks. James shot at them but did not know whether he hit them because they ran off.

He said he followed the dogs until they left his property.

Terry, on the other hand, said he had stopped about a half mile east of James’ place and was listening to the dogs running toward the road when he heard the shots and then heard only silence. Wondering about the sudden quiet, Terry drove to a gate to James’ property where he believed he had last heard the dogs. James came to the gate and told Terry he had shot the dogs. Terry asked what the dogs were doing, and James said, “They were on my land.” A short time later, Terry found one of the dogs near the red gate nervous and shaking. Three days later another dog returned to Mabus’ land with three pellet shots in his hip. Two dogs never returned.

Buddy also said he heard the dogs as they crossed onto James’ land. Seconds after they crossed, he heard shots and then silence. After Buddy learned the dogs had been shot, he met Terry at James’ house. James told Buddy he shot the dogs because they were on his land, never mentioning at that time that the dogs had attacked his ducks or geese.

At trial, James said he hadn’t mentioned to either of the Mabuses that the dogs had been attacking his ducks because if the Mabuses knew what the dogs had done, they would have denied ownership. The duck issue was important because Mississippi law gave James the right to shoot dogs if they were on his land attacking his waterfowl. James contended that he had seen two dead ducks and one crippled one. James’ daughter also testified that a few months after the incident she saw one dead duck and a crippled one by their pond.

At the close of the Mabuses’ case, James moved for a directed verdict on grounds that the Mabuses put on no proof that the dogs were dead or that James hit any dogs when he shot at them. The trial court denied James’ motion, finding that reasonable inferences could be drawn from the evidence.

The jury found for Buddy Mabus, and I.C. James appealed.

This muppet is a curmudgeon, too, but he hasn’t shot any dogs that we know of.

Held: The dog shooter had to pay. The Mississippi Supreme Court held that credibility and weight to be given to James’ testimony was a matter for the jury to determine. Here, the circumstantial evidence was sufficient to create a jury question as to whether the dogs ran onto the property owner’s land and were shot and injured or killed by the property owner, and the trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying the motion for a new trial.

The Court observed that inherently probable, reasonable, credible and trustworthy testimony – uncontradicted by other evidence – must be accepted as true. But appellate courts will give a jury great deference in its conclusions about the credibility and weight of testimony. In this case, determining whether to accept property owner James’ testimony that the hunters’ dogs had attacked his ducks or the Mabuses’ testimony was a matter for the jury to decide.

To be sure, verdicts must rest upon reasonable probabilities, and not mere possibilities, but a verdict found on circumstantial evidence will stand unless it is opposed by a decided preponderance of the evidence or is based on no evidence whatever. The Supreme Court said that whether there was any circumstantial evidence from which the jury reasonably could infer death or injury to Buddy’s dogs caused by James was a determination to be made by the trial court, and the weight to give such evidence was for the jury. Here, there was plenty of circumstantial evidence that would let a jury conclude that Buddy’s dogs ran onto James’ land and were shot by James for that reason alone, despite James’ contention that the dogs were attacking his ducks (which would have given him a statutory right to shoot and kill them without liability).

As far as the trial court’s determination that the evidence was sufficient to support the verdict, all conflicts and all reasonable inferences from the testimony will be construed in favor of the party who prevailed at the jury trial, and the reviewing court will assume the jury drew every permissible inference from the evidence offered in favor of the winning party. It appeared to the Supreme Court that the jury simply chose not to believe James’ assertion that the dogs were attacking his ducks.

– Tom Root

Case of the Day – Wednesday, August 21, 2024

Posted on August 21, 2024 by TLRoot tagged.

THIS IS WHY YOU SHOULD COME IN OUT OF THE RAIN

Sad to say, stupidity abounds.

Most of us know – thanks to our mothers – that we should come in out of the rain. One dark and stormy night, Katherine Grigg forgot that life lesson.

Kate was driving on Mount Pleasant Road, in rolling farmland at the foot of the California Sierra Madres. Normally an enjoyable drive, Mount Pleasant Road had become anything but pleasant in the driving rain. She encountered a large tree that had fallen from Dennis Taylor’s yard across the road. Naturally, she got out of her car. Who wouldn’t? Standing in the wind and sheets of rain, she and another weather-challenged motorist, David Eggert, determined the tree was too big for them to move.

As their two-party Mensa meeting continued, a second tree fell, hitting both Grigg and Eggert. This is where you perform a face-slap and say, “D’oh!” You might think these two were Darwin Award contenders, but this was California. So they became plaintiffs instead.

At least Grigg did. The court reports that when she asked Eggert whether they should sue Taylor. Eggert replied, “Why? … this was what I call an act of God.”

Maybe the tree knocked a little sense into him. It had no salubrious effect on Kate Grigg, however. She sued, claiming that Dennis Taylor should have removed the danger trees, and his “conscious choice… to neglect his duties which are prescribed to protect the public, is despicable conduct which is the basis for punitive damages.”

It turned out that Eggert was right. It was an act of God. What’s more, despite the fact that Dennis Taylor had reason to know that this act of God was likely to happen, he nevertheless was found to have done enough – not much, but enough – to discharge his duty to the public. Dennis was found not to be liable.

D’oh, Kate.

Grigg v. Taylor, Case No. C050070 (Superior Ct. Cal. June 28, 2006) 2006 Cal. App. Unpub. LEXIS 5661, 2006 WL 1756843. Plaintiff Katherine Grigg encountered a large tree blocking her way one stormy night on Mount Pleasant Road in Lincoln. The tree had fallen from Dennis Taylor’s property, which was adjacent to the road. Another motorist traveling on the road, David Eggert, parked behind Grigg’s car. Grigg and Eggert got out of their vehicles and determined the tree was too big for them to move. As Eggert was thinking of an alternate route they could take, a second tree fell, striking both Grigg and Eggert.

The tree that had fallen on Grigg and Eggert was one-half of a “V” shaped double-trunk tree. The tree’s other trunk had fallen a few weeks before the accident. When the first trunk fell, Taylor inspected the tree and believed it was not going to fall because several other double-trunk trees on his property were still standing after one trunk had fallen. He decided not to take care of the remaining trunk right away “[b]ecause there w[ere] a series of storms” and he “didn’t feel like getting wet.” Nevertheless, once a week, Dennis checked his property for danger trees. Placer County, California, had no law, ordinance, or regulation requiring landowners to prune their trees.

Grigg sued Taylor for negligence and for maintaining a nuisance by failing to maintain the trees on his property. She wanted compensatory and punitive damages.

The court granted Taylor’s motion for nonsuit regarding punitive damages, and the jury found for Taylor on the remaining claims. Grigg appealed.

Held: Dennis Taylor was not liable to Kate. On appeal, she complained there was insufficient evidence to support the jury’s verdict that Taylor was not negligent and had not created a nuisance. The Court of Appeals disagreed, citing evidence Taylor had inspected his trees weekly, that he had several double-trunked trees on his property that had lost one trunk but remained safe, and that his neighbor — who had lost a tree in the storm himself — hadn’t seen any hazardous-looking trees on Taylor’s property.

Grigg’s complaint that Taylor had created a nuisance failed on the same evidence. Without Taylor having any liability to Grigg, the complaint that he should have been ordered to pay punitive damages was moot. The Court said, “The jury found Taylor was not negligent in maintaining his property and did not create a nuisance. There was substantial evidence to support those verdicts. Given the jury’s verdicts, any error in granting the nonsuit on Grigg’s theory that Taylor’s conduct was ‘despicable’ was harmless.”

– Tom Root

Case of the Day – Tuesday, August 20, 2024

Posted on August 20, 2024 by TLRoot tagged.

O TEMPORA, O MORES!

Cicero rails against Cataline in the Senate.

That great Roman senator and statesman, Marcus Tullius Cicero, was raging against Cataline when he uttered the now-famous phrase “O tempora, o mores!”

“Oh, what times, oh, what customs!”

We took Latin in high school, and – thanks in no small part to the late Emily Bernges of Sturgis, Michigan, our magnificent Latin teacher – we developed a great respect for Cicero. Senator Marcus T. had plenty of his own problems to deal with when he gave his first oration against Cataline, but we threw up our hands like he did and asked the same question about today’s case. We have charted how, during the 20th Century, the law governing landowner liability had crept inexorably toward mandating that property owners inspect their trees. In today’s case, a New Jersey court likens trees to product liability, in that a property owner who sells his or her land may remain liable for what happens to the trees well after the new owner takes possession.

“Bull-pucky!” you say. “I sold the place, I’m done with it!” To that we respond first that you need a better class of epithet, and second that you are sadly mistaken.

Mr. Narsh had the misfortune to be driving by a wooded lot belonging to a local church when a tree fell on his car. After the funeral, his estate sued the church, as well as the previous owner, the owner before that owner, and the owner before that owner. It’s surprising that the Lenape Indians – who had owned the area back when Giovanni da Verrazzano arrived in 1524 – weren’t co-defendants, too.

It turned out that Zirbser Brothers, Inc., had bought the land three years before the accident. That corporation sold it 18 months later to Zirbser-Greenbriar, Inc. (“ZGI”), which – as its name suggests – was another company owned by the same people who owned Zirbser Brothers, Inc. ZGI built a nursing home on some of the land and conveyed the rest, including the part with the dead tree, to St. Stephen’s Lutheran Church just a few weeks before the accident.

A jury decided that the Estate that had sold the property to Zirbser Brothers, Inc., and the Church were not liable. However, the Zirbser brothers’ two companies were found liable, despite the fact that neither owned the property when the tree fell.

The court first observed that in New Jersey, one who places or maintains in or near a highway anything which, if neglected, will render the way unsafe for travel is bound to exercise due care to prevent it from becoming dangerous. This rule places an affirmative duty on the landowner to prevent trees from becoming dangerous.

We could see that coming from the decisions we reviewed last week. It seems, however, that there was more. The Court said it saw “no reason why an owner who would be liable to a member of the public under the rule … should be absolved from liability by the simple act of the sale of his property.” Calling the rule that a landowner was no longer liable once the property was sold an “[a]ncient distinction,” the appellate court compared the matter to product liability – where manufacturers and everyone else in the supply chain remain on the hook for defects for what seems forever (just ask the general aviation industry) – holding that the landowner could remain responsible for defects even after the land was sold and he could no longer remedy any problems.

The Court found “no support in reason and logic for any distinction between the liability of a vendor of land in an urban area who erects a tower on his land, and one who maintains a rotten tree on his land.” The Court concluded that “[t]he obligation of reasonable inspection which may be involved if a vendor is to be held liable for dangerous conditions existing on his property at the time of its conveyance, is small when compared with the danger posed by a rotten tree poised over a busy highway. The fact that the vendor may have lost the right to go on the property and make repairs is beside the point–the rule is aimed at inducing him to make inspections and guard against dangers before conveyance. The law should be based on current concepts of what is right and just and the judiciary should be alert to the never-ending need for keeping its common law principles abreast of the times.”

Yeah, right. What this means to the prudent homeowner is that any conveyance of real estate should be accompanied by a tree inspection by a certified arborist, that being insurance against the outside chance that someone gets hurt or property gets damaged by a falling tree in the future.

How long in the future? This liability for property that has been sold can’t go on forever, right? After all, the Lenapes didn’t get sued. The Court said that “where an owner of land adjacent to a highway in an urban area, conveys his land, on which is located a tree which he knows, or should know, presents an unreasonable risk of injury to the public, he remains subject to liability for physical harm caused by such condition after his vendee has taken possession … until the vendee has had reasonable opportunity to discover the condition and to take such precautions.”

What’s reasonable? That’s probably for the jury to decide. The problem is, if you’re in front of a civil jury, that means you’re in a trial, and you’ve already lost even if you win. Better to spend the extra money early for an arborist’s inspection at closing.

More cost. More uncertainty. More precautions. Oh, what times! Oh, what customs!

Narsh v. Zirbser Brothers, Inc., 111 N.J.Super. 203, 268 A.2d 46(N.J.Super.A.D. 1970). On April 28, 1967, James H. Narsh met his death when a large tree fell upon him as he was driving his car on North Evergreen Avenue in Woodbury. The plot on which the tree had been standing was heavily wooded with old trees, a number of them being close to the sidewalk. A witness who resided in an apartment across the street heard a cracking noise and saw the tree fall onto the decedent’s car. He had previously noticed that the tree, which was very close to the road, was dead, shedding branches, and appeared quite rotten.

The plot on which the tree had been located had been sold three years before by the estate of Alfred Green to Zirbser Brothers, Inc. Zirbser Brothers, Inc. retained title for two years, then conveyed it to ZGI, a corporation formed by the Zirbser brothers and having the same stockholders, directors and officers as Zirbser Brothers, Inc. ZGI retained a portion of the tract for a nursing home, but on April 20, 1967, sold the remainder – including the portion on which the offending tree was located – to a church. The accident occurred eight days later. All four parties were sued.

The jury exonerated the Green estate and the church, but found both Zirbser Brothers, Inc. and ZGI “guilty of negligence which was a proximate cause of the accident.” The jury awarded $85,000 in damages.

Zirbser Brothers appealed.

Held: Zirbser Brothers, Inc., remained liable for the tree for a reasonable period of time after transfer to the church.

There was ample evidence that the fallen tree, like many others on the property, was rotten, and that any owner should have known it. But Zirbser Brothers, Inc., neither owned nor possessed the lot in question at the time of the accident. Its conveyance to ZGI had taken place almost a year before, although Zirbser was on the property building the nursing home. Some of its construction materials and its construction trailer were still on the land when the accident occurred. Nevertheless, from the time of the sale to the church, Zirbser was without the right to cut down trees or otherwise police the part of the property where the subject tree was located.

The Court held that as of the time of the accident, Zirbser’s presence on the property purchased by the church, standing alone, did not afford an adequate basis for a present duty on its part to guard against the falling of the tree.

Pay the inspector, Shirley ... it's a lot easier and cheaper to do it now.

Pay the inspector, Shirley … it’s a lot easier to do it now … and as a group, they’re cheaper than lawyers.

If one negligently creates a condition on land which is unreasonably dangerous to outsiders, the Court said, there is no good reason why his potential liability should stop either when he transfers possession of that land or when his successor in occupancy becomes liable either because of his possession or because of his fault in negligently omitting to repair the danger. The Court observed that the boundaries of tort liability for dangerous conditions on the land have gradually been extended by our courts in recent years. It held that “[t]he rationale which underlies [a landowner’s] continued liability for a structure on his land would apply equally to a tree which is so close to a highway as to endanger traffic thereon should it fall. In this day and age, with its attendant increase in population, greater use of automobiles and more intense use of land, the presence of a rotten tree along a busy highway poses dangers greatly in excess of those with which the courts were confronted in the cases on which appellant relies. The obligation of reasonable inspection which may be involved if a vendor is to be held liable for dangerous conditions existing on his property at the time of its conveyance is small when compared with the danger posed by a rotten tree poised over a busy highway. The fact that the vendor may have lost the right to go on the property and make repairs is beside the point – the rule is aimed at inducing him to make inspections and guard against dangers before conveyance.”

The Court thus held that where an owner of land adjacent to a highway in an urban area conveys his land – on which is located a tree that he knows or should know presents an unreasonable risk of injury to the public – “he remains subject to liability for physical harm caused by such condition after his vendee has taken possession. If he has actively concealed the condition from the vendee his liability continues until the vendee discovers it and has reasonable opportunity to take effective measures against it, otherwise it continues until the vendee has had reasonable opportunity to discover the condition and to take such precautions.”

The takeaway here: the prudent landowner will have regular inspections of trees done, with written reports, and will follow the reasonable advice of the arborists. When the property is sold, a home inspection may be requested by the buyer, but a grounds inspection should be ordered by the seller.

– Tom Root

Case of the Day – Monday, August 19, 2024

Posted on August 19, 2024 by TLRoot tagged.

THERE ARE LEGAL COSTS, AND THEN THERE ARE LEGAL COSTS

Let nothing come between a lawyer and his or her fee.

You might be cynical, and imagine that today’s case is nothing more than a lawyer worried about collecting a large and unwarranted fee. But the case is much more than that.

The facts are rather prosaic. Some landowners failed to carefully mark the common boundary with their neighbor before setting a timber company loose on the property. Sure enough, the cutters harvested some of the neighbor’s trees. That much wasn’t an issue.

When Valarie Garvey sued the Chaceys for timber tress, property damage and a collection of related causes of action, the Chaceys hired some aggressive litigators. Their lawyers knew that the best trial defense often is a good pretrial offense. They fought tooth-and-nail before trial, gaining their best tactical high ground when Valerie’s lawyer inexplicably didn’t identify the plaintiff’s timber expert by the pretrial deadlines.

The expert was crucial because he was going to testify as to the value of the timber that had been wrongfully cut. But once the expert established the value of the missing trees, Section 55-332 of the Virginia Code would let Valerie Garvey collect three times the value of the wrongly-cut timber, plus reforestation costs, plus other damages to the property (such as the private road the timber harvesters ripped up) plus “legal costs directly related to the trespass.” In short, it looked like a big payday for Valerie Garvey. She just had to do one thing. She had to prove the value of the stolen timber.

Alas, she screwed it up. Perhaps it would be more appropriate to say her lawyer screwed it up. Without the expert, Valerie had no way to get the value of the timber into evidence. When the jury decided the case, it was able to award her the princely sum of $15,135.00 (only a fraction of the reforestation costs she estimated to be $78,000.)

Valerie’s lawyer, trying to save a case that was going south pretty fast, successfully convinced the trial court that the “directly associated legal costs incurred by the owner of the timber as a result of the trespass” included attorneys’ fees. Valerie claimed she had spent over $135,000 in legal fees, and the trial court awarded even more than that – $165,000 – in fees.

We doubt that Valerie’s lawyer was going to get all of that. In fact, Val had every right to be as mad as a wet hen over counsel’s missing the expert witness deadline. We suspect that the lawyer and client had made a deal to salvage something out of the case, and counsel would have ended up with little more than cab fare (but no malpractice claims). Unfortunately, we’ll never know because on appeal the Chaceys convinced the Virginia Supreme Court that whatever “directly associated legal costs” might be, they are not “attorneys fees.” The Supreme Court was impressed that wherever the legislature intended to authorize the award of attorneys fees – in over 200 statutes in the Code – it was able to clearly say so.

The Chaceys – not satisfied with hitting a triple – swung for the fence. They asked the Supreme Court to rule that where a plaintiff claiming timber trespass did not prove the value of the missing timber, the case should be thrown out. The Supreme Court disagreed. Proving a timber trespass does not require that one prove the value of the purloined pines. Of course, not doing so cuts the plaintiff out of a lot of damages, but the offense does not depend on proven damages. It just requires that a trespass to timber occur, whether the tree is worth anything or not.

As for Valerie’s attorney, we suspect he was on the phone pretty quickly, calling his malpractice carrier.

Chacey v. Garvey, 291 Va. 1, 781 S.E.2d 357, 358 (2015). In 1995, Valerie Garvey bought 50 acres of land from Allan and Susan Chacey. The Chaceys retained ownership of adjacent property, and they reserved to themselves an easement over Garvey’s property as a means for ingress and egress to their property.

At the end of 2012, Garvey sued the Chaceys and Blue Ridge Forestry Consultants, Inc., alleging timber theft and trespass. Garvey said the Chaceys had hired a logging company a few years previously to remove some timber located on their property, and that the company had trespassed on her property and removed timber without her permission. She alleged that she was entitled to damages for timber theft at three times the value of the timber on the stump, as well as reforestation costs not to exceed $450 an acre, the costs of ascertaining the value of the timber, and her attorney’s fees. She also asked for $30,000 for damages to her property caused by the trespass, including damage to the road, fencing, and the stone bridge.

Prior to trial, Garvey attempted to designate an expert witness for the purpose of establishing the monetary value of the timber on the stump at issue in the complaint. However, she did so too late, and the trial court refused to let her expert testify during the three-day jury trial.

While she was testifying at trial, Garvey was asked by her attorney whether she had incurred legal costs in connection with the trespass. The Chaceys objected, but the trial court ruled that legal costs included attorney’s fees. Garvey told the jury that she had incurred more than $135,000 in legal costs, including attorney’s fees, which she claimed were all directly associated with the trespass. She also testified that she had negotiated with Bartlett Tree Services for the restoration of the trees, and she had paid a deposit of $440 towards that work, against a total price of $78,000.

The trial court ruled that Garvey could not recover treble damages since her expert evidence regarding the value of the timber on the stump had been excluded. However, the case could still go to the jury for consideration of damages for reforestation and legal costs.

The Chaceys argued that attorneys’ fees are not recoverable by a prevailing party in an action for timber theft pursuant to the Virginia Code § 55-331. They also contended that Garvey’s timber trespass claim should not have been submitted to the jury, because she had failed to provide any evidence related to the value of the alleged damaged timber. However, the jury found for Garvey on her claims of timber theft, trespass, and property damage. On the timber theft claim, the jury awarded Garvey $135.00 in reforestation costs. The jury also awarded her legal costs. On the trespass count, the jury awarded Garvey $15,000 in damages. The trial court held that Garvey was entitled to $165,135 in “directly associated legal costs incurred by Plaintiff as a result of the trespass, including attorney’s fees, in the amount of $150,000 …”

The Chaceys appealed.

Held: The Virginia Supreme Court split the ticket. It observed that although Virginia Code § 55-331 permits any victim of timber trespass to collect “directly associated legal costs incurred by the owner of the timber as a result of the trespass,” whether Garvey was entitled to attorney’s fees depends upon the meaning of “costs.” Garvey argued that her attorney’s fees are legal costs directly associated with the trespass. The Chaceys argued that Garvey is merely entitled to the costs necessary for the prosecution of her suit.

Tracing the definition of “costs” in other proceedings, the Court held that “the term ‘costs’ is limited to the costs necessary for the prosecution of a suit, and does not include attorney’s fees. The Code of Virginia contains more than 200 instances where the General Assembly has determined a successful litigant is entitled to ‘attorney’s fees and costs’ or ‘costs and attorney’s fees’ … However, the General Assembly did not include the right to recover attorney’s fees in this statute, something it has done in more than 200 other separate instances.”

The Court disagreed with the Chaceys, however, about the timber trespass claim. The Chaceys, no doubt wanting to capitalize on their pretrial success in keeping Garvey’s expert off the stand, argued that the trial court erred in permitting Garvey’s timber trespass claim to proceed to the jury because Garvey failed to provide any evidence related to the value of the alleged damaged timber. Essentially, the Chaceys were contending that evidence related to the value of the damaged timber is a prerequisite to awarding any of the additional damages provided for under Code § 55-332(B).

Virginia Code § 55-332(B) holds that any person who removes timber from the land of another without permission is liable to the rightful owner for “three times the value of the timber on the stump and shall pay to the rightful owner of the property the reforestation costs incurred not to exceed $450 per acre, the costs of ascertaining the value of the timber, and any directly associated legal costs incurred by the owner of the timber as a result of the trespass.” The Court held that there was nothing in the statute that stated that an owner is only entitled to reforestation costs, legal costs, or the costs of ascertaining the value of the timber after he or she had first established the value of the timber that was improperly taken. Instead, the Court said, the statute made clear that the person who removed the timber “shall be liable to pay” all of these damages to the owner. The fact that Garvey was unable to prove the value of the timber on the stump, in this case, did not preclude her from being able to recover the other damages she was entitled to under Code § 55-332(B).

– Tom Root

Case of the Day – Friday, August 16, 2024

Posted on August 16, 2024 by TLRoot tagged.

BUILDING A CASE

Trees falling on vehicles never work out well for the vehicle.

A family’s Christmas – and for that matter, its future – was ruined on a rural Ohio one dark December night.

Mike and Traci Reed were driving their two kids home from a Christmas celebration, Traci and her 5-year-old son were in her car, following her husband and their daughter in his, because they had picked up her vehicle at her office, where she had left it earlier. When Mike and daughter Samantha got home, Traci – who had been following them – was no longer behind them. Mike backtracked to find her car crushed by a tree. An EMS worker at the scene told him that his wife was dead and his son was in critical condition.

The wheels of justice ground slowly after the accident. Four years after the accident, the Ohio Court of Claims – which decides questions of the State’s liability – finally decided the question of the Ohio Department of Transportation’s liability. The case is of interest not just because of the dry reduction of human tragedy into the dispassionate allocation of responsibility (although it is interesting for that, too). The findings of fact and conclusions of law handed down by the magistrate (who is kind of an assistant judge) illustrate a well-structured case presented by the plaintiff and a poor rebuttal by ODOT.

One wonders why the State of Ohio didn’t just settle the case if it was going to make such a poor showing. Its own employees made the plaintiff’s case, and its expert pretty much just “phoned it in.” But from the plaintiff’s perspective, the case is a veritable “how to” try a claim of liability against a state agency in a “danger tree” case.

Reed v. Ohio Dept. of Transportation, 2012-Ohio-1244 (Ct.Cl., Mar. 23, 2012). Traci Reed and her young son, Conner, were driving northward through the hilly eastern Ohio countryside when a tree fell on their car. Traci was killed and her son was badly injured.

The tree that fell on Traci had shown as “substantial ‘lean’” in the year prior to the accident, and other trees on the same embankment had fallen during that time. Traci’s husband had observed this, but he had never complained to the Ohio Department of Transportation himself. Rather, he assumed that ODOT knew about the condition because road crews maintained the area throughout the years.

The Court noted that ODOT had a general duty to maintain its highways in a reasonably safe condition for the traveling public, but it is not an insurer of the safety of its highways. ODOT may be held liable for damage caused by defects or dangerous conditions on state highways where it has notice of the condition, either actual or constructive. Actual notice exists where, from competent evidence, the trier of fact can conclude the pertinent information was personally communicated to or received by the party. Constructive notice is that notice that the law regards as sufficient to give notice and is regarded as a substitute for actual notice. Under Ohio law, in order for there to be constructive notice of a nuisance or defect in the highway, that nuisance or defect must have existed for such length of time as to impute knowledge or notice.

The plaintiff (who was the husband of the deceased wife and mother) presented several ODOT employees responsible for vegetation management and hazard abatement along the road in question. He established that some of the employees knew of the tree and believed it to be dangerous, and others – while not recalling the tree – agreed when studying the accident photos that it was dangerous. Plaintiff called a surveyor to establish that the tree had fallen within the state’s right-of-way on the highway and put people on the stand who had lived close to the accident site and who testified that they had seen the tree and thought it was a hazard.

Additionally, the plaintiff produced an urban forestry consultant who was certified by the International Society of Arboriculture as an arborist. The forester prepared for his testimony by reviewing court documents, and photographs, visiting the accident site and examining cut-up tree remnants. He testified that the tree was a 50-year-old red oak and that it contained “reaction wood,” which forms to counter a leaning of the tree. He observed that the pith, the biological center of the tree, was off-center and that the tree’s roots in the embankment showed mild to moderate decay. He concluded that the tree was “hazardous” (as defined by the International Society of Arboriculture Hazard Rating System). His conclusion was based on the tree’s potential to fail and the potential to hit a target, because of its significant lean, its location in a sloped embankment with exposed roots, and the visually obvious deadwood in the crown of the tree. He testified that once a tree is “off vertical” with unstable soil, each progressive year increases the risk of failure. The tree was located on a steep slope, which compromised its stability.

The expert concluded that ODOT failed in its duty to remove a hazardous tree that had several significant defects readily observable from the roadway. He said it was “not a question of if, but a question of when” the tree would fall onto the highway.

ODOT presented the testimony of one of its employees who said he had removed the tree from the road after it fell, and he had been familiar with it prior to that time. He said he had never seen any condition that concerned him, and if he had, he would have reported it. ODOT also presented its own expert, who prepared his testimony in the same manner as did the plaintiff’s expert. He said that the tree has a “classic natural lean,” due to the fact that the tree was on the edge of the woods and it grew toward the sunlight. According to ODOT’s expert, the center of the tree was asymmetric, but there was no indication that the tree was dead or distressed. The State’s expert opined that the tree falling was “natural, it was not predictable.” However, on cross-examination, he conceded that the tree’s center of gravity was “probably not over the roots” and that a tree does not have to be dead, decayed, or diseased in order to be a hazard.

The finder of fact – in this case, a magistrate who heard the evidence for the court – found the Reeds’ expert to be more persuasive. The evidence about the tree’s shifted center of gravity carried the day; the court concluded that the red oak tree that fell on Traci Reed’s vehicle was a hazard to the motoring public. As for notice, although ODOT said it had received no complaints from either its staff or the public regarding the tree, two of its employees acknowledged that they were aware that the canopy of the tree extended over the roadway. The court found that ODOT had actual knowledge of the hazardous condition, which had existed for more than a year prior to the accident and which was within the State’s right-of-way.

An “Act of God?”

ODOT argued that the property owner where the tree was located was liable for the tree, but ODOT presented no evidence showing that the landowner had actual or constructive notice. As well, it argued that the tree fell due to an act of God. The court rejected that argument. The evidence showed that there was no weather that night that was sufficiently “unusual and overwhelming as to do damage by its own power” to make the falling tree an Act of God. Even if there had been an adverse weather condition on the night of the accident, the Court said, “it has also been the rule of law that, ‘[i]f proper care and diligence [on a defendant’s part] would have avoided the act, it is not excusable as the act of God.'” ODOT’s failure to exercise proper diligence resulted in the tree falling, the Court said, not an act of God.

ODOT was held liable for the falling tree and Traci Reed’s death.

And after considering the damages showing? The Court awarded the family $4 million.

– Tom Root