Case of the Day – Monday, June 29, 2026

Posted on June 29, 2026 by TLRoot tagged.

I CHANGED MY MIND… I GUESS

Doug Van Dyne had big plans for getting folks back to nature. He wanted to build a nature trail along a ravine that split his property and that of his waffling neighbor, Eunice North. People could enjoy the birds, the babbling brook, the scent of pine… that kind of thing.

If you ever wonder whether it’s a good idea to get agreements in writing, Doug’s $70,000 mistake will settle that question for you. Because Doug’s nature path would meander a bit onto Eunice’s side of the ravine, he told her about his plans for the trail. Eunice, who admitted that she really had no idea what Doug was talking about, said she just “shrugged my shoulders” and replied that “I guess it would be okay.”

To Doug, that was like the green flag at Indy. But little did he know that Eunice promptly began to fret about her confused acquiescence. She had trouble sleeping due to her worry, and finally asked a friend about the plan. Her friend told Eunice the trail idea was a mistake. Armed with this advice, Eunice said, she reneged. She claimed she told Doug that she didn’t want him around.

“No probalo,” Doug – who had no intention at all of honoring Eunice’s change-of-heart – allegedly responded. Regardless of his actual intentions, Doug promised Eunice that he “would go to a different plan.”

That different plan seems to have involved having his contractor run the bulldozers at full throttle instead of half throttle. By the time the diesel fumes cleared, 20 of Eunice’s trees had been ground under Caterpillar treads and the trail encroached on her land.

Eunice sued Doug for trespass, loss of lateral support, and loss of trees. The jury awarded Eunice $50,000 on the trespass and lateral support claims and $20,100 in treble damages on the loss-of-tree claim. It mattered little that Doug and the contractor both told a different story, the bulldozer operator testifying that Eunice had agreed to Doug’s plan. The jury believed Eunice.

Juries do that, often buying one side of the story and not the other, many times against common sense. We don’t know that that happened here, but it sure did not help Doug that he had not bothered to have the property boundaries surveyed before the ‘dozers started dozing.

Much of Doug’s appeal focused on damages. The jury agreed that Doug’s dozing had made Eunice’s side of the ravine unstable. Eunice’s expert testified that there were three ways to repair the damage, but none of the three would restore the ravine to its pristine state. Doug argued that said because the land could not be repaired to the way it was before the bulldozers rolled through, then the diminution of the fair market value of the ravine was all that mattered.

Not so, the court said. The law does not require that the evidence show the damage can be repaired to make the property as good as new. While it is a general rule of Iowa law that the cost to repair property is the fair and reasonable cost of repair not to exceed the value of the property immediately prior to the loss or damage, all Eunice was required to do was to establish a fair and reasonable cost to fix things up in order to arrest further deterioration and make the place as good as it can be made. In this case, Eunice showed that she had three means of stabilizing the steep bank after Doug’s earth-moving frolic, and only one of those made any sense. She established the cost of that repair and the value of the property before the damage.

Because the damages did not exceed her expert’s $129,000 repair price tag, it was clear the jury fulfilled its function in weighing the evidence.

Next time, Doug, get the landowner’s OK in writing. Call a surveyor. Stake the property boundaries. Surely that’s cheaper than $71,000.

North v. Van Dyne, Case No. 16-0165 (Ct.App. Iowa, Sept. 13, 2017). Douglas Van Dyke hired Heck’s Dozer, Inc., to build a trail along a ravine between his property and adjacent land owned by Eunice North. Twenty of North’s trees were removed during the trail’s construction, and a portion of the completed trail encroached upon North’s property. Doug said Eunice gave him permission. Eunice said she initially sort of equivocated, but later told Doug in no uncertain terms that he was to stay off her land.

Doug said he would do so, but he never had the land surveyed or staked, and his guess as to the location of the property line was by guess and by gosh. Doug’s contractor said he met with Eunice, and she approved the plans. Eunice said she had never met the contractor.

Eunice testified that after she told Doug to steer clear of her property, she heard a “‘loud commotion.’ Standing on her deck, she saw ‘two pieces of heavy equipment’ below and ‘trees… flying.’ She decided not to go into the ravine to check on the commotion because she was ‘afraid’ she would get ‘hit with something,’ and she had physical difficulties getting ‘down there.’ Suspicious of an encroachment on her land, she commissioned a survey. The surveyor confirmed her fears.”

Eunice sued Doug for trespass, loss of lateral support, and loss of trees. The jury awarded her damages of $50,000 on the trespass and lateral support claims and $20,100 in treble damages on the loss-of-tree claim, Doug appealed.

Held: Eunice amply proved that Doug should pay treble damages under Iowa Code § 658.4 (2013). The statute requires the damage to trees be committed willfully or without reasonable excuse.” The term “willfully” has been characterized as an intentional and deliberate act without regard to the rights of others. Here, the Court of Appeals said, a reasonable juror could have believed that Eunice said “no” and that Van Dyke “acted… without reasonable excuse.”

The jury could also have found that Doug’s failure to commission a survey before building the trail deprived him of any reasonable excuse for the trespass. The testimony established that Doug relied on an “old fence,” “old posts,” a “shed,” and a “roofline” to gauge the boundary.

The measure of damages is the cost of repair, as long as that cost does not exceed the value of the property prior to the damage. Doug complained that because Eunice’s expert testified only that the continued deterioration of the property could be stopped by stabilizing the steep bank, she was not able to show that the property could be repaired to its original state.

The Court of Appeals held that nothing requires the repair estimate to be sufficient to restore the land to its state before the damage. As long as Eunice provided evidence of the fair market value of the land before and after the damage, and a repair cost that is less than the value of the place before the damage – which she did – she met her obligation. Here, the damages awarded by the jury were higher than Doug’s estimate of $2,500.00 to fix it, but well below Eunice’s estimate of $127,000. Plus, the jury’s $50,000 award for trespass and lateral support was well below Eunice’s evidence that the land was worth $250,000.

The damage to the trees was assessed separately, with the value of the lost timber found to be $6,700, trebled to $20,100.

– Tom Root

Case of the Day – Friday, June 12, 2026

Posted on June 12, 2026 by TLRoot tagged.

I WANT MY TREES BACK…

A long, long time ago, before I was trained to think like a lawyer, I was a neophyte law student and still thinking like a layman, that is to say, “normally.” New law students are first exposed to contract law, as anyone old enough to recall “Paper Chase” well knows. Digging into Basic Contract Law, that boring-looking brown tome that was chock-a-block with fascinating cases, I very quickly ran into Peevyhouse v. Garland Coal Co. (on the second day of class, I recall).

Farmer Peevyhouse signed a deal with Garland Coal Co. to strip mine his land. The land was hilly, and Farmer P thought that strip mining was the ideal way to fix that. So he got Garland Coal to agree to level the land when the company was done strip mining.

Garland Coal left a lot of hills behind…

When the coal was gone, so was Garland Coal, leaving the farm just as hilly as it was before the mining. Farmer Peevyhouse sued for breach of contract. He won, of course, but when it came to figuring damages, the court noted that the diminution in value of the farm because it was still hilly (as opposed to flat) was only about $5,000. But if Garland Coal were required to return to keep its promise to level the place, it would have to spend $25,000 to do so. The higher award would constitute economic waste, the court held, and the court was not about to be wasteful with the coal company’s money.

Back then, as a tyro-at-law, I couldn’t understand the decision. Who cared if the damages were wasteful, or if the market value of the farm was only slightly less? To me, Farmer Peevyhouse made a deal, Garland Coal agreed to the deal, and – inasmuch as Garland got all the coal it bargained for – Farmer P should get what he bargained for as well, economics be damned. The economics did not matter to me nearly as much as the parties’ reasonable expectations.

Now, with many years of practice under my belt, I tend to think like a lawyer. But Peevyhouse still makes no sense to me. The farmer would not have let Garland Coal strip his land without the promise to level the hills. So the promise was material to the farmer. Why reward Garland Coal simply because Mr. Peevyhouse’s legitimate desires might not make great economic sense?

In The Princess Bride, Inigo Montoya ends his years-long quest to avenge his father’s untimely death in a fight to the death with the six-fingered man. At last, Montoya has the tip of his sword at Count Rugan’s throat:

Inigo Montoya: Offer me money.
Count Rugen: Yes!
Inigo Montoya: Power, too, promise me that.
Count Rugen: All that I have and more. Please…
Inigo Montoya: Offer me anything I ask for.
Count Rugen: Anything you want…
[Rugen knocks Inigo’s sword aside and lunges. But Inigo traps his arm and aims his sword at Rugen’s stomach]
Inigo Montoya: I want my father back, you son of a bitch!

That, on a less dramatic level, was Paul Harder’s complaint. As we read in yesterday’s installment on this case, while Paul was absent from Alaska, Joel and Darlene Wiersum clear-cut his land without permission in order to improve their view. In seeking money to restore his property – a sum that came to something like four times the fair market value of his land before the clear-cutting – Paul told the jury he “didn’t want money,” but rather he only wanted his trees back. Paul, therefore, asked for damages to restore the property by replanting the forested area.

Count Rugen could give Inigo money and power and land. But he could not give Inigo what he wanted the most, a desire that was heartfelt if utterly infeasible (and rather uneconomical). In that regard, Inigo Montoya and Farmer Peevyhouse had something in common. The question is whether they both had something in common with Paul Harder. We’ll find that out now…

Wiersum v. Harder, 316 P.3d 557 (Alaska, 2013). Paul Harder owned a pretty nice piece of Alaskan wilderness near Kodiak. He built a cabin on it and lived happily for quite a stretch. But when wanderlust set in, he subdivided the land, sold the plot with the cabin on it to his sister Lisa, and kept one for himself, and left for a 15-year sojourn in warmer climes.

Paul lived in Hawaii but returned to visit his plot of land occasionally and enjoy the hunting, fishing and recreation opportunities it afforded.

About nine years after Paul went south, Joel and Darlene Wiersum bought some land at the top of a hill, adjacent to the Harder tracts. Looking down the hill, they could see Lisa’s cabin several hundred yards below, and incorrectly assumed she owned it all. One day, Darlene called Lisa at work and asked whether they could cut down some trees on Lisa’s property that Darlene thought might “come down with the wind” and hit their home. Lisa gave them permission because she thought the removal of some trees would “let a little more light in” to the woods.

Darlene and Joel did not just thin out a few hazard trees. Instead, they clear-cut the entire hill, out to almost 400 feet beyond their property line. When Lisa returned home to find that bare naked hillside, she told the Wiersums not to cut any more trees.

When Paul returned a couple of years later, he discovered the clear-cut hillside (which really was on his plot, not that of his sister), and promptly sued the Wiersums for timber trespass. A jury him $161,000 in compensatory restoration damages, which was trebled under Alaska statute AS 09.45.730.

The Wiersums appealed.

Held: The jury’s restoration damage award was reversed and sent back for retrial.

A party who is injured by an invasion of his or her property that does not totally destroy its value may choose as damages either the loss in property value or “reasonable restoration costs.” To determine whether an award of restoration costs is appropriate, Alaska follows the Restatement (Second) of Torts § 929. The Restatement says if a plaintiff is entitled to damages for harm to land resulting from a trespass that does not amount to a total destruction of value, the damages include either (1) the difference between the value of the land before the harm and the value after the harm, or—if the plaintiff so chooses—the cost of restoration that may be reasonably incurred. Damages are measured by the difference between the value of the land before and after the harm only if the cost of restoring the land to its original condition is disproportionate to the loss in the value of the land caused by the trespass “unless there is a reason personal to the owner for restoring the original condition.”

That’s the law for you. A layman untrained in legal niceties would say “a personal reason,” but the legal phrase is a “reason personal.” The distinction is intended to convince you that the law must be complex, and thus you ought to pay that “bill inflated” your lawyer hands you without a whimper.

A “reason personal,” the Court said, is a reason peculiar or special to the owner, where “the owner holds property primarily for use rather than for sale and where the owner is likely to make repairs with the restoration costs award rather than to pocket the funds and enjoy a windfall.” For example, the Court in the past had found a “reason personal” where the damaged property was used by the plaintiff as “a showplace in connection with his nursery business” and, in another case, where the property enjoyed “unique views… abundant trees, and the unusual juxtaposition of the trees, the cabin, and the views,” and its owners, who planned to retire on the property, had testified that “other properties in the area were not comparable.”

To find that a plaintiff had a “reason personal” for restoration, where those costs were much higher than the loss of value to the land, a court should look for evidence showing “a reasonable likelihood that the trees would be restored.”

Paul showed at trial that he held on to the Monashka property for 34 years and that he intended to build a house and live on it once his son graduated from college because “it’s a very beautiful piece of property.” A real estate agent testified that he approached Paul about selling the land, but Paul had refused. Paul testified he “didn’t want money,” but rather he only “wanted his trees back” and was asking for damages to restore the property by replanting the forested area. He said he enjoyed spending time with his children on the property, but that after the trees were cut down, the property “looked totally different,” full of salmonberry bushes… whereas it was just like thick moss before,” and he reported that he had not heard any ravens there since the trees were cut.

The Wiersums argued the award of restoration damages was objectively unreasonable because the total market value of Paul’s property before the timber trespass was only $40,000. A damage award of $161,000, they contended, was disproportionate to the property’s diminution. Besides, peripatetic Paul’s “minimal use of and contribution to the land’s special value would at most justify a marginal award of restoration costs.”

The Court noted it had found in the nursery case that restoration damages were not “grossly disproportionate” where the owner had paid $4,000 per acre for the property, but the jury awarded $12,550 for restoring a quarter-acre of land. Because the principal value of the property stemmed from the creek running through it, and the owner intended to use the property to create “a showplace in connection with his nursery business,” the cost of restoration, although disproportionate to value, was reasonable. Nevertheless, the Court had previously cautioned that “restoration costs exceeding diminished market value may be awarded only to the extent such added costs are objectively reasonable in light of the ‘reason personal’ and in light of the diminution in value.”

The “reason personal” may be a non-commercial one based on the property’s uniqueness, but the restoration award must be limited to the cost that has been or may be reasonably incurred. The reason for this rule, the Court said, is “to reduce the economic waste that occurs when a party incurs repair costs in excess of the diminished value of the property.” The application of this principle “must ensure that an award of restoration damages does not confer a windfall upon a landowner.” Where proposed replacement costs are excessive in relation to the damage caused by the trespass, “the achievement of a reasonable approximation of the land’s former condition may involve something less than substantially identical restoration… It may be more appropriate to award costs for the planting of saplings, or a few mature trees, or underbrush to prevent erosion and achieve a lesser but, over time, reasonable aesthetic restoration.”

Applying these principles to Paul’s denuded hillside, the Court held that the award of $161,000 in restoration costs was objectively unreasonable in light of the $40,000 pre-trespass total value of the property. Paul’s “reason personal” for restoration, and the absence of any proof of the extent of the decrease in the value of his property, made it more appropriate to award costs “for the planting of saplings or a few mature trees or underbrush to prevent erosion and achieve a lesser but, over time, reasonable aesthetic restoration.” The Court’s conclusion was based on its determination that the “property could be reasonably restored by replacing at least some of the mature Sitka spruce with saplings or smaller trees and that because the property’s large trees were growing in a forested environment where the root zones were intertwined” it was not possible to “replace that exact tree in that environment.”

The jury must base its award on a finding that the restoration costs were objectively reasonable in light of the value of Paul’s land, the loss of value due to the Wiersums’ trespass, and his “reason personal.” Here, the Court said, no reasonable juror would award restoration costs totaling more than four times the full fair market value of the property before the trespass. Thus, the Court sent the case back for a new trial on damages.

And what’s my take on this case, based upon my decades of thinking like a lawyer? I’m with Inigo Montoya and Paul Harder: “I want my trees back, you son of a bitch,” and economics be damned.

This is a bad decision.

– Tom Root

Case of the Day – Tuesday, May 12, 2026

Posted on May 12, 2026 by TLRoot tagged.

MILLION-DOLLAR BABY

I’ll tell you where the real money is in litigation. It’s not the guy who walks into the lawyer’s office with a tale of woe at the hands of some big, faceless, loaded corporation. It’s not the guy who was busted for pot, and he bonded out on Friday but they didn’t release him until Monday.

It’s right here: I should have a nickel for every would-be client who ever asked me to take a case on contingent fee, because they were sure to get beaucoup bucks in the end with an outraged jury handed them millions in punitive damages for a fender-bender, or a sharp-tongued government clerk, or a badly-written newspaper story, or whatever the injury du jour might be. Total up my nickels, and I ought to be sitting on the veranda of my Caribbean beachfront mansion writing this right now.

Alas, I am at my kitchen table in Ohio. It’s not quite the same…

Few would-be litigants really appreciate that punitive damages, also called exemplary damages, are damages awarded by a jury to punish a defendant for some terrible conduct, because, after all, it’s a civil action, and you can’t throw the malefactors in jail. But contrary to legend, punitive damages have to be tied to some actual harm.

In today’s case, some junior leasing agent for a billboard company (sorry, that’s not the proper term – these days, it’s ‘OOH’ or ‘out-of-home’ advertising) got a little too enthusiastic in clearing the view for the billboard, and when the dust settled, some of the trees that had been felled belonged to the neighbor of the guy who had leased space for the billboard (now there’s someone who should be locked up, the guy who let that eyesore get erected). The leasing agent was sloppy, careless even, perhaps – dare we say? – reckless.

The jury found that the neighbors were harmed in an amount of about $32,000. But it added to that figure an eye-popping $2.2 million in punitive damages. That was too much for the trial judge, who tried to get the farmer to accept a remittitur, that is, settle for a paltry $550,000. The farmer wouldn’t do it, so the court ordered a new trial. The farmer appealed.

All of $32,000 in damage, and a cool half mil on top of it? Farmer Blust was the living embodiment of the aphorism, “Pigs get fat, but hogs get slaughtered.”

Blust v. Lamar Advertising Company, 157 Ohio App.3d 787 (Ct.App. Montgomery Co., 2004). A Lamar leasing agent signed up Jim Weber in September 1998, leasing a small piece of Jim’s farmland near the property line between his farm and his neighbor, the Blust farm, for a billboard. The two farms were separated by an old wire fence that was largely concealed amid dense brush, vines, and trees. Because Lamar planned to erect its billboard near the tree line and undergrowth separating the two farms, it hired Woody’s Tree Medics to remove some of the trees and vegetation from Jim’s property.

A Woody’s work crew entered the Blust property and cut down 34 trees, 17 of which were more than three inches in diameter. At trial, a jury found Lamar liable in tort for trespassing and removing the trees without permission, and awarded the Blusts compensatory damages of $32,000 and punitive damages of $2.2 million. The trial court denied Lamar’s motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict on the punitive damages award but indicated that it would grant a new trial on all issues, including liability, unless the Blusts accepted remittitur, that is, a reduction, of the punitive damages award to $550,000.00, with half of that amount going to a nonprofit nature conservancy. The Blusts rejected remittitur, and the trial court ordered a new trial.

The Blusts appealed, challenging the trial court’s holding that the punitive damages verdict was excessive and its decision to grant a new trial on all issues.

Held: The Court held that the Blusts were entitled to punitive damages, but the award was excessive. Thus, the trial court did not err in ordering a new trial, limited how much should be awarded in punitives.

In order to recover punitive damages, the Blusts had to show that Lamar acted with “actual malice.” Actual malice, the Court said, is a state of mind under which a person’s conduct is characterized either by ill will or by such a conscious disregard for the rights and safety of other persons that its conduct is very likely to cause substantial harm.

The Blusts argued that Lamar’s act of directing that their trees be cut constituted a conscious disregard for their rights with a great probability of causing them substantial harm. The Court agreed, finding substantial evidence in the record that Lamar’s agent consciously disregarded the Blusts’ property rights by ordering the cutting of trees on their property. Jim Weber told Lamar’s agent about where the property line fell and told her to follow the farm fence as a guide. After the cutting began, a friend of the Blusts appeared at the site to tell Woody’s crew that it was cutting trees on the wrong property. The Blusts’ tenant farmer, Ted Eby, saw workers clearing trees from the Blusts’ property, and he spoke to the s crew and the agent, telling them they were cutting the Blusts’ trees.

Despite all of these warnings, the agent told Woody’s workers to keep the saws humming. A reasonable juror, the appeals court said, could find that Lamar consciously disregarded the Blusts’ property rights.

A closer question, the Court observed, is whether Lamar’s agent was aware that having the Blusts’ trees cut carried with it a great probability of causing substantial harm. “We harbor no doubt,” the Court said, “that clearing the trees had a great probability of causing some harm. Indeed, removing the trees was absolutely certain to cause harm to the extent that the Blusts lost their trees. The crucial issue on appeal is whether the agent knew that this loss of the trees had a great probability of resulting in substantial harm to the Blusts, or more specifically, whether reasonable minds could differ on this issue.”

The Court said “substantial” means “major, or real importance, of great significance, not trifling or small.” Here, the “harm” was obvious: it was the loss of the Blusts’ trees. But in order to determine whether this harm was “substantial,” it was necessary to assign some measure of value to the trees. The Blusts said that someday, they might divide a portion of the farmland into residential plots, and the absence of trees would harm the value of the plots. The Blusts’ expert testified that the trees’ loss would diminish the fair market value of the subdivided property by $51,600.

The Blusts also argued that they hoped to sell the wood from three wild walnut trees someday for veneer. What’s more, the Blusts presented testimony that it would cost $40,566 to purchase and replant all of the trees or $24,335 to replant 11 of the larger trees. Lamar argued, on the other hand, that the stumpage or firewood value of the timber was only $105. Lamar also presented expert testimony that removal of the trees may have caused the Blusts’ property value to decline by at most one percent, or $3,870.

The Court held that most of the measures of damage could be characterized as “substantial.” But the record contained no evidence that Lamar’s agent knew the Blusts might subdivide their farm for residential purposes. The record also contained nothing to indicate that the agent knew of any plans to sell the walnut trees for veneer. Likewise, the agent did not know that the Blusts – who did not live on the parcel – would ever want to replace some or all of the trees. Thus, the agent could not have known that cutting the trees would harm the future value of the land as subdivided plots, frustrate the prospects of marketing veneer, or even just lead to $25,000 – $40,000 replacement costs.

However, fair market value is a different story. Even Lamar admitted that the cutting may have reduced the Blusts’ property value by $3,870. “A reasonable juror,” the Court said, “could find that a loss of this size qualifies as substantial harm and not a trivial loss.” A decline in property value because of losing trees is a “typical measure of the harm, and it is entirely predictable.”

When a verdict is influenced by passion or prejudice, the Court held, a trial court must order a new trial. However, when a verdict is merely excessive, but not influenced by passion or prejudice, a trial court must offer the plaintiff a choice between remittitur or a new trial. If the plaintiff rejects remittitur, a new trial must be ordered.

The Court agreed that the Blusts’ punitive damages award was grossly excessive under constitutional standards and had to be set aside. Therefore, the judge properly directed the Blusts to choose remittitur or a new trial. However, the only issue tainted by error was the jury’s punitive damages award. The Blusts should not have been required to place in jeopardy their compensatory damages award or the jury’s determination that some punitive damages are warranted by undergoing a new trial on those issues.

The case was sent back to the trial court for a new calculation of punitive damages.

– Tom Root

Case of the Day – Thursday, April 30, 2026

Posted on April 30, 2026 by TLRoot tagged.

MEASURING HARM

Mr. Harper accidentally cut down 70 trees on Ms. Dumas’ property, thus markedly improving his view. Oops!

The more skeptical among us think that cutting one Dumas tree would have been an accident, and cutting down a few would be a tragedy. But cutting down 70 of ‘em, and coincidentally achieving the better view Mr. Harper coveted… well, that sounds like enemy action.

The Connecticut court is considerably more credulous than we are. The judge bought the notion that Mr. Harper and his woodsmen goofed, but pondered long and hard about how to figure the damages. In a weird inversion of schadenfreude, Ms. Dumas argued her damages should be measured by the value that Mr. Harper derived from his better view. The Court rejected that.

Instead, it held that the measure of damages is either the value of the timber or the diminution in value of Ms. Dumas’ place. Harper said that the trees he accidentally lopped weren’t ornamental, so the only damage is about $1,000 worth of debris (thus proving that while he couldn’t identify a property line, old Mr. Harper didn’t lack for chutzpah).

The Court disagreed. The trees weren’t strictly ornamental, but that was their purpose, regardless of Mr. Harper’s sad attempt at botanical speciesism. The damages should be measured by the cost of repair, the Court said, and the repair will cost $16,000.

Careful testimony by Ms. Dumas’ expert was crucial to establishing her damages, and arborists and landscape professionals should consider how plenty of detail can persuade a court to side with an expert’s report. For the same reason that play-by-play people keep a color commentator near at hand, an expert should tell a story that’s not only accurate and complete, but interesting as well.

Dumas v. Harper, 2008 Conn. Super. LEXIS 264, 2008 WL 496558 (Conn. Super.Ct., Feb. 6, 2008). Yvon Dumas claims that Emery Harper and his agents entered her land without permission and cut down about 70 trees. Dumas claimed trespass and sought compensatory and treble damages under Connecticut law, and other equitable relief. The matter was tried to the judge instead of a jury.

Based on the evidence, including a site inspection, the court found that Harper and his minions had indeed cut down about 70 trees, making the area unsightly with tree stumps, branches and debris strewn about. The Court found that Harper’s trespass was the result of a mistake.

Nothing left but a stump field …

Dumas introduced evidence of the value of the “view” to Harper with the trees on her property cut down. But the Court ruled that the value of any view to Harper was not the measure of damages, but rather the damages were either the market value of the tree once cut down, or the diminution in the market value of Dumas’ property caused by the cutting. Harper argued that the only measure of damages the court was permitted to award under Connecticut General Statute § 52-560 was the market value of the 70 trees as severed from the soil, because the trees in question were neither ornamental nor shade trees. The Court disagreed, holding that while the trees were not ornamental trees as such, the evidence was that they had ornamental value insofar as their removal rendered that portion of Dumas’ property unsightly. It would make no sense, the Court said, for the damages to be limited to the value of the trees as severed from the real estate. The damages to be awarded to Dumas should be based on the reduction in the pecuniary value of the land because of the cutting.

The Court found that the decrease in value of the Dumas property should be measured by the cost of cleanup and screening the area with new trees. The Court accepted the expert opinion of Dumas’ landscape consultant, who testified that the work would take a week or more and would cost $9,180 for labor and $6,000 for new trees.

– Tom Root

Case of the Day – Tuesday, March 31, 2026

Posted on March 31, 2026 by TLRoot tagged.

THE CURE IS TOO MUCH BETTER THAN THE DISEASE

I had a call recently from a North Dakota lawyer, who was involved in a tree case where the standard for measuring damages being considered was the “cost to cure.” He wondered whether I was familiar with the concept.

In losses due to wrongful cutting of trees, we traditionally see damages being applied as diminution of value of the property (noncommercial trespass), the value of the timber (in commercial trespass cases), and, occasionally, restoration value (the cost to restore that which was lost). The ultimate goal, as we once noted, “is compensation for the harm or damage done. Thus, a court may apply whatever method is most appropriate to compensate a plaintiff for his or her loss.”

The question posed by our attorney friend from the Flickertail State left me scratching my head, (not a good idea, because it dislodged some of the little hair I have remaining): it sounded to me that “cost-to-cure” was being used in the case as a fancier name for restoration costs (sometimes called replacement costs). The only place I had seen the term “cost to cure” used was in condemnation cases. A Texas appellate decision in such a case defined the “cost-to-cure” approach as “an appraisal technique used to arrive at the taken property’s market value and the diminished market value of the remainder, which included the cost to replace improvements taken, damaged, or destroyed after they have been appropriately depreciated.

The attorney asked me whether I could verify “that the Cost of Cure Method has been accepted by the Courts.” Not really. My problem is that “cost of cure” has been accepted by the courts in condemnation cases, where the government decides to take your property for some more-or-less debatable public “good.” But I have never seen it called “cost of cure” in a tree damage case, where “cost of restoration” is the term applied when that measure of damage is called for.

Nevertheless, I found a condemnation case from Michigan that tangentially involves trees (and thus meets my exacting standards for this blog). So, as a consolation prize, let’s see how a fruit farmer tried to jack up the value of the loss of 20% of his acreage with a “cost to cure” analysis, and how the court – quite appropriately channeling Publilius Syrus – told him the cure couldn’t be better than the disease.

Dept. of Transportation v. Sherburn, 196 Mich.App. 301, 492 N.W.2d 517 (Mich.App. 1992). Loris Sherburn was a fruit farmer along Lake Michigan. When the Michigan Dept. of Transportation decided to extend U.S. 31 in Berrien County, it took 28 acres of Loris’ 124-acre farm. A court battle ensued, as it often does, over the value of the property taken. The State argued the value of the 28 acres was $47,200. Farmer Sherburn argued the property carved off his farm was worth closer to $183,000, claiming that this was the cost to cure the loss caused by the loss of the acreage.

The trial court found Loris was entitled to $56,600 for the condemnation of 28 acres of the farm.

Loris appealed.

Held: Loris was only entitled to $56,600. The Court of Appeals acknowledged that in a condemnation case like this one when only part of a larger parcel is taken, the owner is entitled to recover not only for the property taken but also for any loss in the value to his or her remaining property. The measure of compensation is the difference between the market value of the entire parcel before taking and the market value of what is left of the parcel after the taking.

Loris’ expert witness used the “cost to cure” method of calculating damages. The appellate court agreed that the cost-to-cure method is a measure of damages that may be considered by the jury, provided the cost to cure does not exceed that difference between the market value of the entire parcel before the taking and the market value of what is left of the parcel after the taking.

MDOT’s expert witness, an independent real estate appraiser, calculated the value per acre of the farm, which made the place worth $122,800 for all 124 acres. Using the same method, he found the 96-acre parcel remaining after condemnation to be worth $75,600. Thus, he concluded that Loris Sherburn’s damages were $47,200, the difference between the value of the entire parcel and the value of the remaining parcel after condemnation.

Farmer Sherburn had different ideas. His first expert witness, a real estate appraiser, using a comparable sales method, testified that the market value of the farm before condemnation was $215,000. He also estimated it would cost the farmer about $183,000 to replace the mature vineyards, peach and apple trees, and buildings lost in the condemnation. The witness contended that Loris, in addition to retaining possession of the remaining 96 acres, should recover the $183,000 cost-to-cure damages.

Loris’ second witness, an independent fee appraiser, testified that using the market data approach, the market value of the defendants’ farm before the taking was $345,000, while the market value of the remaining 96-acre parcel after the taking was $139,000, leaving a difference of $206,000.

The Court of Appeals agreed with Loris that where a partial taking occurs, it is possible for the property not taken to suffer damages attributable to the taking. “These damages have been described as ‘severance damages’,” the Court held, “which may be measured by calculating the difference between the market value of the property not taken before and after the taking. Where severance damages have occurred, it may be possible for the property owner to take steps to rectify the injuries in whole or in part, thus decreasing the amount of severance damages and correspondingly increasing the parcel’s market value.” These actions constitute a “curing” of the defects, according to the Court of Appeals, and the financial expenditures necessary to do so constitute the condemnee’s cost to cure.

However, the Court held that the cost-to-cure damages in a given case are not unlimited. Where the market value of the property taken, the value of the property remaining, and cost-to-cure expenses exceed the market value of the land before condemnation, cost-to-cure damages will not be awarded. “An owner is not to be enriched because of the condemnation,” the Court said.

This leaves “cost-to-cure” damages as a valid measure of damages “only when it is no greater in amount than the decrease in the market value of the [remainder] property if left as it stood.” Thus, the Court concluded, “where there is no claim of severance damages, the maximum damages recoverable equal (the market value of the entire parcel before the taking) minus (the market value of the remainder after the taking). Where severance damages are claimed, the maximum damages recoverable equal (the market value of the parcel taken) plus (the market value of the remainder after the taking) plus (the cost-to-cure expenses); however, the total damages awarded may not exceed the fair market value of the whole parcel before the taking.”

For Farmer Sherburn, the trial court correctly concluded that cost-to-cure damages are not recoverable to the extent that they exceed the market value of the entire property before the taking.

– Tom Root

Case of the Day – Tuesday, February 3, 2026

Posted on February 3, 2026 by TLRoot tagged.

DOING DAMAGE

Most of the time, the object of a civil lawsuit is to collect damages. Damages may either be compensatory – intended to compensate or to put the victim in the same place he or she would have been had the wrong not occurred – or punitive, intended to punish the wrongdoer.

Today, we’re going to talk about compensatory damages. How much has an injured party been damaged by loss of or damage to trees? The first question to be answered is whether the trees were commercial or “ornamental” in nature.

If the tree taken was commercial timber, the calculation is straightforward. Courts use either the stumpage value or the timber value. Stumpage value and timber value estimates depend upon timber volume estimates, which in turn are based upon the raw data collected in the field by timber cruisers. Put another way, estimating the value of timber taken in a trespass involves a three-step process. First, a timber cruise is conducted, and measurements are taken in the field. Timber cruising includes identifying a tree species, taking measurements of the stump diameter and from the stump to the top of the tree left on the ground, measuring any logs left on the ground, and recording measurements on a tally sheet. Second, the collected measurements are converted into volume estimates using established mathematical formulas. Third, those volume estimates are then converted into value estimates.

The distinction between timber and stumpage value only comes into play during the third step of the process. Stumpage value is the value of standing trees or what one might pay for the right to cut and remove trees. Timber value is the value paid by mills for cut logs. If timber value is used, it would be fair to argue to the Court that a deduction should be included for the cost of cutting and hauling the lumber. But where the timber trespass was especially egregious, don’t hold your breath waiting for compensatory-damage compassion from the bench.

But what about where the tree is not commercial timber, like that 80-year-old oak that used to shade your front yard before a confused tree service company employee cut it down, thinking he was supposed to be at your house instead of a place two streets away. The single oak’s commercial value won’t begin to compensate you for the loss.

There’s always a tension between the value a lover of the land places on his or her trees and the price tag affixed to those same trees by bean counters testifying in some cold courtroom. That’s why courts in many states apply different rules when the wrongfully taken tree was a stately old elm shading the farmhouse, a tree with maybe $1,000 in timber value but much greater value to the wronged property owner. The fact is that the wronged owner just plain likes the trees that had been taken, and the fact that his or her enjoyment of the trees might not be quantifiable in a real-estate-value analysis makes little difference.

Anderson v. Howald, 897 S.W.2d 176 (Court of Appeals of Missouri, 1995). Melba Anderson discovered the limits of gratitude. For 40 years, she had let her neighbors, the Howalds, use a 7-foot-wide path across the corner of her land to get to their property. In 1991, the Howalds – apparently deciding that they shouldn’t settle for free use of a mere path where a free superhighway could be installed – brought bulldozers onto the Anderson land to “improve” the path. They knocked down trees, dug up rocks, and gouged things out but good.

Ms. Anderson sued and won an injunction, throwing the Howalds and their bulldozer out, but the trial court only gave her $6.40 in damages.

She appealed.

Held: The puny damage award was reversed. The Court of Appeals noted that “ordinarily, the measure of damages… is the market value of the property at the time it was removed from the land.” In this case, the trees being shade and ornamental trees of no commercial value, their value was slight. That seemed to offend the Court, especially when it saw the photos in the record of the extensive damage done by the Caterpillars.

The Court held that “in at least one instance, this court approved the use of before and after values of the real estate as a measure of damages… where the things taken, injured, or destroyed by a willful trespass have no substantial market value when considered in their severed state. The “general rule is that the measure of damages for trees that are not valuable for timber is the injury to the land caused by destroying them. This rule is based on the obvious reason that the value of such trees considered apart from the land would not be adequate compensation for the trespass.”

Courts, then, generally apply a measure of damages that considers the fair market value of the property with the tree and without the tree (which can be substantial for a single huge specimen that is the signature tree on the property). More often, the courts hold that the proper measure of damages is the replacement cost of trees rather than the value of real estate, even if the property owner cannot prove that the destruction of trees diminished the value of the property as a whole.

Courts often permit consideration of such replacement costs where the trees have aesthetic value to the owner as ornamental or shade trees, or for purposes of screening sound and providing privacy, in determining damages. Because one simply cannot replace a 50-year-old sugar maple tree with a similar tree, the courts apply a multiplier to the replacement cost to account for the number of years it will take for a replacement tree to reach the size and maturity of the tree that was removed.

– Tom Root

Case of the Day – Thursday, November 20, 2025

Posted on November 20, 2025 by TLRoot tagged.

SIR, YOU ARE NO GEORGE WASHINGTON

Today, we conclude our consideration of the trespass problems faced by our New Hampshire landowners Larry and Laura Littoral. If you have followed along to this point (and can remember what transpired even after the news broke that Kim Kardashian did so well in the California bar exam that she has been invited to take the second half next year), you know that the Littorals’ pastoral cottage getaway – situated on a classic New England pond – has been disrupted by neighbor Wally Angler.

Compared to Wally, Donald Trump would prefer Nancy Pelosi as a neighbor. Wally – a NINO (neighbor-in-name-only) – is an angler, and asked the Littorals to chop down some dead trees on their property to create a trout habitat in the pond for the primary (and sole) purpose of adding to Wally’s piscatorial pleasure. You can hear him now: “Thanks for all the fish!”

The Littorals preferred that their dead timber remain standing. When Wally asked them to cut down the trees, they said, “So long,” refusing to dump their tree into the pond. Apparently reasoning that it’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission – especially where permission has already been denied – Wally then took advantage of the Littorals’ weekend absence by bringing in a tree service to cut the trees down for him. According to the Littorals, Wally affirmatively misled the tree cutters that the dead trees were on his property, and the tree service cut down the timber with alacrity.

For the record, Wally denies having anything to do with the felling of the dead trees. He seemingly maintains that he turned around one day, and mirabile dictu, the trees were on the ground. If George Washington had tried a similar woof story on his father about a downed cherry tree, we’d probably all be speaking English and enduring a manchild national leader whose conduct is concerning for dementia. As every schoolchild knows, however, Little George ‘fessed up, telling his father, “I cannot tell a lie.” Channeling Lloyd Bentsen, our observation is this: Wally, we served with George Washington, George Washington was a friend of ours. Wally, you’re no George Washington.

Our analysis this week has assumed that unless Wally can produce the elves responsible for the tree cutting (and their saws), the Littorals will easily meet their burden of proof.

So far this week, we have concluded that the Littorals may bring a double-barreled complaint, alleging a statutory violation of New Hampshire’s trespass-to-tree statute, R.S.A. § 227-J:8, and a common-law trespass count. The § 227-J:8 count carries some rather serious penalties, from three to 10 times the market value of the trees. The catch is that the penalties must be based on a multiple of market value. Market value may be the stumpage value of the wood – what it is worth on location to a lumber buyer – or on the cost to replace the tree, minus transportation and planting costs.

We’re assuming for the sake of this column that a few dead trees probably are not going to have much stumpage value. The Littorals could find an expert to establish how much replacement of the trees would cost, but replacement value has traditionally been used because everyone assumes that the destroyed trees would have continued to flourish but for the actions of the defendant. Here, the defendant’s expert would have a good argument that those trees were going to fall in the next strong wind anyway, and awarding the Littorals new live trees to replace their old dead ones would give the plaintiffs a “windfall” for what was only windfall to begin with.

Wally suspects elves.

Given Wally’s underhanded approach to getting what he wanted (and what the Littorals did not want), we don’t have much trouble with the Littorals receiving a windfall. The law in New Hampshire and elsewhere does, however, hold instead that damages should be limited to compensating for the actual injuries suffered. For that reason, the Littorals can take the confluent approach that under the common law of trespass, their real property has suffered a decrease in value because of Wally’s conduct, both because of where the dead trees are no longer standing and because of where they are currently laying.

Even then, the Littorals might have a problem because the usual assumption underlying damages for loss of trees is that standing timber will continue to stand for the indeterminate future. That assumption may be challenged where the standing timber is already dead. Nevertheless, there is ample evidence that dead trees standing have value. As we noted the other day, dead trees provide shelter or sustenance to over 40 percent of all birds, to amphibians, and to lichens and moss. Dead trees create “snow fences” that slow wind-driven snow. The snow that is trapped melts in place and saturates the ground, providing additional moisture to live trees. Dead trees create hiding cover and thermal cover for big game as well.

Even more counterintuitive, dead trees – after dropping their needles and bark – may reduce fire hazard. Their flammability is greatly reduced compared to green trees containing flammable resins.

In the Connecticut decision we’re examining today, the plaintiff relied on standing dead timber to help maintain privacy from his neighbor. The court appeared to recognize that the elimination of the standing dead trees contributed to a substantial diminution of her property value, even while acknowledging that the trees themselves had no value. It’s not a New Hampshire case, but then there is a dearth of cases nationwide where the wrongfully cut trees were ornamental in nature and yet very dead even before tasting the ax. We were glad enough to find this one. The decision suggests that an action alleging loss of privacy may be the strongest case of all.

Caciopoli v. Lebowitz, 131 Conn.App. 306 (Court of Appeals, Connecticut, 2011). Dominic Caciopoli was a man who liked his privacy. He bought his place because it was isolated and private, surrounded by forest on all sides except for one area of the lot through which his driveway passed. A short while later, Jeffrey Lebowitz bought the place next door. His house was about 100 yards from Dom’s, and the area between the residences was wooded, affording each privacy from the other.

A few months after moving in, Jeff hired a tree service to clear standing dead trees from the wooded area between the two homes. Jeff believed the dead trees were on his land, but he didn’t check that carefully. The tree service removed all the dead timber, both standing and on the ground, some small saplings, and a few larger trees to provide more sunlight and enlarge the areas surrounding his house. Of course, it turns out that virtually all of what was cut really belonged to Dom.

When Dom came home to find that his natural privacy barrier had been clear-cut, he was not happy. He went to Jeff’s front door and expressed his displeasure, pointing out the actual property line in the process. Nevertheless, the next day, the tree service returned and finished the job. The removal of the trees and brush left Jeff with an unobstructed view of Dom’s house.

Jeff tried to make amends. He sent Dom a letter admitting his error and planted some trees on Dom’s property to replace what had been taken. Dom was not happy with the results and undertook his own extensive landscaping project in a failed attempt to restore his lost privacy.

Give a man a fish, and feed him for a day. Give a man a chainsaw, and watch trouble ensue.

Dom sued Jeff for common-law trespass and for treble damages pursuant to Connecticut General Statutes § 52-560 (the Connecticut adjunct to R.S.A. § 227-J:8). The trial court found that Dom had proven the elements of an intentional trespass action and awarded him $150,000. for the diminution in the value of his property caused by the trespass. Notably, the trial court declined to award any damages for the value of timber that had been removed.

Jeffrey Lebowitz appealed, alleging a lot of infirmities with the trial judgment. Of interest to the Littorals is Jeff’s appeal of the damage award.

Held: The trial court’s award of $150,000 was proper. The trial court found that after the cutting, Dom’s place was worth $675,000, according to an appraisal performed by a certified general real estate appraiser. The appraiser opined that prior to the cutting, Dom’s market value was $825,000. The Court of Appeals noted that Jeff could have presented his own expert testimony on the diminution of value, but he did not. Applying the ancient legal doctrine, et dormiat, ne perdatis (“you snooze, you lose”), the court said Dom’s expert was found to be credible and competent, and absent Jeff making an expert showing at all, that was good enough.

But, Jeff complained, Dom’s expert was not qualified to give an opinion as to the effect of the removal of certain trees from Dom’s property on its market value. He argued the expert had no relevant experience and was considered an expert only because she had a real estate appraiser’s license. However, the Court of Appeals said, the trial court relied on the fact she had conducted 1,500 appraisals before, and when the trial judge asked her whether she was able to testify as to the value of the property before and after the removal of the trees, she said she could. (This is rather like finding that she was an expert because she asserted she was, a rather bizarre ipse dixit, but the Court of Appeals was loathe to disturb a verdict and thus give Jeff a second bite of the apple on remand).

Jeff also argued that the court made no finding whether there was an adequate factual foundation for a “retrospective appraisal” – an appraisal after the fact of the value of the property before the cutting – and that Dom did not ask the court to find there was an adequate foundation for allowing the opinion evidence. The Court of Appeals pointed out that it was Jeff’s burden to object to the testimony on those grounds at the time of trial. Again, et dormiat, ne perdatis. The expert testified she visited the property in January and February 2009 and had determined the lot enjoyed a high degree of privacy prior to the incident. She also had studied photographs of the lot prior to the trespass and after the trespass, and noted that the pictures depicted more clearing of trees than she had imagined, thus strengthening her opinion as to diminution in value.

No one contests that trees in the water are a good habitat for fish… but Wally should have used his own trees.

The Court observed that Jeff pointed to no authority to suggest that the expert’s personal observation of the property, her reliance on the plaintiff’s descriptions of the prior conditions of the property, and her review of photographs of the property in its prior conditions, was insufficient to form an inadequate factual foundation. The Court said the expert’s personal observation of the property “complemented by the plaintiff’s descriptions of the property in its prior conditions, is not impermissibly speculative…” After all, the Court said, Dom – as the owner – was undoubtedly familiar with his property (if perhaps lacking disinterest in the outcome), and no one was more competent than he to describe to the expert what it had looked like before the cutting.

The Court held that the fact that the expert “could not give a logical explanation for how she arrived at her opinion and did not articulate or apply methodology suitable to determining any diminution in value caused by the clearing of trees” was not fatal to her testimony. She testified that she examined real estate in the area, found comparable properties, estimated degrees of privacy and made adjustments, positive or negative, for the differences in the properties in order to “equal everything out.” She also noted that an appraisal is not based on science, but it is just an opinion as to value, and the Court accepted that.

Jeff had to pay the $150,000. That’s a lot of money for some dead trees that had no stumpage value.

– Tom Root