Case of the Day – Thursday, July 24, 2025

Posted on July 24, 2025 by TLRoot tagged.

A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN – AND THAT’S DIFFERENT

Time was, trees were just trees, and what they did, how they lived, grew and died, was out of the control of the property owner. No one blamed little Francine Nolan if the tree growing in Brooklyn fell on a Sabrett’s cart.

About the time little Francine was living in her Williamsburg tenement, an influential group of judges, scholars, and lawyers in Philadelphia formed an organization known as the American Law Institute. They believed, among other things, that they could write comprehensive treatises about all areas of the law – which they called “Restatements” – that would serve as authoritative statements of the principles of common law. No more confusion, no more divergence of holdings, no more contentious arguments! You can just about hear the group, lemonades hoisted (this was during Prohibition, after all), singing “We Are the World.”

I hear the ALI singing …

Alas, Prohibition failed, and so did the ALI’s goal of replacing all of those tedious casebooks and treatises with the Restatement of the Law. Everyone loved the Restatements, but far from replacing state common law, case reporters, and codes of statutes, the volumes became just another secondary source. To be sure, some of the ALI members never really thought an entire law library could be replaced with one shelf of Restatements, notably Benjamin Cardozo. He believed that the Restatement “will be something less than a code and something more than a treatise. It will be invested with unique authority, not to command, but to persuade.”

The Restatement of the Law continues today, with some volumes in their third printing. And courts love them, even if they don’t always follow them.

Today’s case is a good example. When the Browns’ tree fell on Ms. Barker’s property, it made a mess. She sued her neighbors, arguing that they should have recognized that the tree was at risk of falling and done something about it. The Browns pointed out that no less persuasive source than the Restatement (Second) of Torts said that they weren’t responsible for the natural condition of trees on their property. The trial court agreed and threw the case out.

The appellate court disagreed. It rejected the Restatement approach as being outdated and not sufficiently attuned to the differences between urban and rural life. In other words, the Court said, if a tree grows in Brooklyn, little Francine had better keep her eye on it.

Francine – be careful that tree doesn’t fall on the hot dog vendor’s cart.

Barker v. Brown, 236 Pa.Super. 75, 340 A.2d 566 (Pa.Super. 1975). Virginia Barker’s property adjoins that of the Browns. Both are located in a residential district of State College. A large tree stood on the Browns’ property, a tree that Barker said the Browns knew or should have known was in a decayed, rotting, and dangerous condition. Barker alleged that the Browns negligently failed to take steps to avert the danger and, as a result, the tree fell onto her property.

The tree’s fall destroyed two of Barker’s trees, valued at about $600 each. Barker had to have the fallen tree removed from her property at a cost of $147.50, and the process required her to miss two days of work, causing lost wages of $34.00. Finally, the incident resulted in a loss of value to Barker’s property in the amount of $600.00.

The trial court threw out the case on the grounds that section 363 of the Restatement (Second) of Torts (1965) precluded holding the Browns to blame. That section provided:

(1) Except as stated in Subsection (2), neither a possessor of land nor a vendor, lessor, or other transferor, is liable for physical harm caused to others outside of the land by a natural condition of the land.

(2) A possessor of land in an urban area is subject to liability to persons 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.

Held: The appellate court reinstated the lawsuit.

The court held that the Restatement’s distinction between natural and artificial conditions – a distinction that had never been the focus of prior Pennsylvania court decisions – was outdated. “It may very well be true,” the Court said, “that the distinction between artificial and natural conditions was valid in a time when landowners were possessed of, and hence would have been charged with the care of large quantities of land. It would still be valid today in rural areas where large landholdings are common. [However], we do not believe that the distinction should be applied to land in or near a developed or residential area. Urban living, by altering the purpose for which the land is used, must also bring with it certain responsibilities. A tree growing in an urban or residential area does not have the same natural relation to surrounding land as a tree located in a rural setting.”

While acknowledging that its approach imposed more cost on landowners, the Court nevertheless believed that “the relatively minor expenditures in time and money that it will take to inspect and secure trees in a developed or residential area is not large when compared with the increased danger and potential for damages represented by the fall of such a tree.”

The Court thus held that a possessor of land in or adjacent to a developed or residential area was subject to liability for harm caused to others outside of the land by a defect in the condition of a tree thereon, if the exercise of reasonable care by the possessor would have disclosed the defect and the risk involved, and repair would have made the tree reasonably safe.

In this case, the Court held, Barker alleged in her complaint that the Browns “knew, or should have known, that the said tree was in a decayed, rotting, and dangerous condition.” This is denied by the Browns, but for purposes of this appeal, the Court had to accept the facts alleged in Barker’s complaint as true. On remand, it noted, the question would be one for the fact finder.

– Tom Root

Case of the Day – Friday, January 3, 2025

Posted on January 3, 2025 by TLRoot tagged.

SELF-HELP WEEK

Quite unintentionally, 2024 (slogan “At Least It’s Not 2020”) – as it slunk out the door in well-deserved shame – is ending with an orgy of self-reliance versus resorting to the courts. On New Year’s Eve, we reviewed a Florida case, Balzer v. Maxwell, in which the court held that the fact that an aggrieved landowner has no remedy but self-help means that when he or she exercises that right, the tree owner has no claim for what might become of the tree. Yesterday, we read a Massachusetts court holding that, on the other hand, when a city takes over an abandoned property for taxes, it assumes liability for hazard trees on the property.

In today’s case, Pennsylvania applies the Massachusetts Rule principles of self-reliance to encroaching tree roots.

Keiper v. Yenser, 1967 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 171 (Common Pleas Ct, Carbon County, Pa., January 23, 1967). Bill and Becky Keiper complained that for more than five years, the roots of Yensers’ willow tree have been extending into their land and penetrating their sewer line, which has cost the Keipers $166.07. They seek reimbursement for the money they have spent and a court order for the permanent abatement of the root encroachment (that is, an order that the Yensers remove the roots at their expense).

The Yensers filed a demurrer; in the alternative, they argued that laches prevented the Keipers from winning, and contended that abatement should not be ordered because the Keipers had an adequate remedy at law.

Held: The Keipers claim had to be dismissed.

Pennsylvania has no statute that would permit the Keipers to claim that the Yensers’ tree was a nuisance. Nor was there any case precedent.

However, looking at other states, the Court noted that in Gostina v. Ryland, a Washington state case, the court held that “were it not for our statute of nuisances, the respondents herein would not be accorded any judicial relief”. And Michalson v. Nutting, the Court said, held in very similar circumstances that “the neighbor, though without right of appeal to the courts if harm results to him, is nevertheless, not without remedy. His right to cut off the intruding boughs and roots is well recognized. His remedy is in his own hands. The common sense of the common law has recognized that it is wiser to leave the individual to protect himself, if harm results to him from this exercise of another’s right to use his property in a reasonable way than to subject that other to the annoyance, and the public to the burden, of actions at law, which would be likely to be innumerable and, in many instances, purely vexatious.”

Thus, the Court held that while the Keipers could cut the offending roots themselves, they had no cause of action to compel the Yensers to do so. “It is a principle well settled by many adjudicated cases, that an action does not lie for a reasonable use of one’s right, though it be to the injury of another. For the lawful use of his own property, a party is not answerable in damages, unless on proof of negligence…”

– Tom Root

Case of the Day – Monday, September 22, 2024

Posted on September 23, 2024 by TLRoot tagged.

A GAME OF INCHES

Baseball, they say, is a game of inches. So are boundary trees, called “line trees” in the State of Pennsylvania (which, by the way, also calls itself a “Commonwealth” instead of a “State”).

Life imitates art, I guess. Last weekend, I hauled away our 25-year old shed. I am replacing it with a newer, larger shed – complete with electricity, windows, and (if I have anything to do with it) a beer refrigerator. Replacing it will come with a set of problems, specifically a line of arborvitae trees, standing behind the shed along the property line.

The arborvitae were tiny little shrubs when our next-door neighbor (two owners ago) planted them in the late 1990s. Now, they’re monsters.

I need to trim back a few of the arborvitae before the concrete pad for the new shed gets poured. Having read some of what I have written about boundary trees over the past few weeks, I figured I had better be sure I was dealing with some good old-fashioned Massachusetts Rule trimming of branches overhanging my property (and not with some oversized arborvitae that had grown across the property line to become boundary trees).

I found the iron pin on one end of the property line and the post on the other, and I ran a line through the trees. Sure enough, two of them have grown across the property line. Lucky for me, the ones I need to trim are still solidly anchored completely on my neighbor’s land. Those I can trim back, exercising both my Massachusetts Rule rights and my ratcheting loppers.

It seems strange that a matter of inches differentiates the trees I can trim with abandon and the trees that I cannot touch without my neighbor’s permission. (I have a great neighbor, by the way, so it is probably not a problem). Nevertheless, the perverseness of the interplay between boundary trees and encroaching trees that stand completely on land other than one’s own is puzzling and irritating to me in an academic and legal way.

My situation is similar to the one in today’s case, which pits a car wash against a restaurant over a row of pine trees that may or may not be on the boundary. Because of the vagaries of how the pine trees at the root of the lawsuit grew along the property line, no one really won: the restauranteur wanted the trees gone, and the car wash owner wanted the trees to remain.

In the end, some of the trees stayed, some did not. And it was all a game of inches…

Wolfinger v. Moates, 7 Pa. D. & C.4th 220 (Pa.Com.Pl. 1990). A line of pine trees separated the Wolfinger Car Wash property from the Moats Restaurant property. Bill Moats received complaints from his patrons about the pine trees, that encroached on his parking lot, scratched diners’ cars and dropped pine cones everywhere (even damaging his lawnmower).

Bill decided to cut down the trees. He told his neighbor, “Suds” Wolfinger, what he planned. Suds was shocked. He liked the trees, partly because they served as a barrier between his business and the restaurant. Plus, his customers preferred parking under them, using the shade while they wiped down their cars. Suds asked Bill not to cut them down.

Bill cut them down anyway, taking out four of the 13 trees on his first day wielding his chainsaw. Suds raced to his lawyer, and together they raced to the courthouse for a temporary injunction. After Bill was forced to stop, Suds tried to make the injunction permanent.

The court found that the two tracts of real estate shared a common boundary line, and 13 trees stood on or near the line. A survey showed that the first five trees, including the four Bill had cut down, were all on his property. Lucky Bill. The next three, however, straddled the boundary. The Court referred to them as “line trees.” Tree No. 9 was on Bill’s land, but some bark on the flare touched the boundary line. The last four trees were all on Bill’s land.

Held: Bill was not allowed to cut the three trees that straddled the boundary.

Pennsylvania law made it unlawful “for any owner or owners of any undivided interest in timber land within this Commonwealth to cut or to remove, or to cause to be cut or removed, from the said land, any timber trees, without first obtaining the written consent of all co-tenants in said premises.”

The Court held that the statute dictated its holding that the owners of adjacent tracts of real estate own all trees growing on their common boundary line as tenants in common. Tenants in common are prohibited from unilaterally cutting down or removing such commonly owned line trees.

Applying the general rules of law governing tenancy in common, the Court held, “We conclude neither adjoining real estate owner may remove a tree growing on a common boundary line. Consequently, in the case at bar, notwithstanding the fact that only inches of the trunks of trees 6, 7 and 8 are on the boundary line between the properties of the plaintiffs and defendants, those trees are jointly owned by plaintiffs and defendants. Therefore, defendants may not remove them.”

Suds was not satisfied. He argued that Tree No. 9 was commonly owned as well because the bark of the tree’s trunk touched the boundary line. Citing the Illinois case Ridge v. Blaha, the Court held that the critical question was “whether any portion of the trunk of the elm tree grows on plaintiff’s property… The law… is determined by the exact location of the trunk of the tree at the point it emerges from the ground.” The fact that the bark of Tree No. 9 touched the line, the Court said, was insufficient to create a tenancy in common.

Trees 1 through 5 and 9 through 13, therefore, were Bill’s sole property. He could cut them down as he wished. But the injunction would become permanent on Trees No. 6 through 8, leaving them to provide both shade and pine cones.

– Tom Root