Nope (though it does depend). I’ve been through several trees falling from storms.
Unless negligence is involve (like an arborist being hired to condemn a tree), they’re generally considered and act of god. They’re the responsibility of the property they fall onto.
So, in the case of OP, the situation is unfortunate, but it’s on him to maintain his properties and his fence lines within his properties. It’s convenient the state has a fence along part of his property, but it’s not their responsibility to fix it for adjacent lots.
If they are aware of a dangerous situation (diseased trees), and don’t do something about it, they are definitely on the hook for property damage caused by that negligence.
It would boil down to their degree of plausible deniability, ‘state priviledge’, and the specifics of the law and precedent in their state of course.
I bet you the tree would show signs of disease if examined, unless this was during some exceptional event.
I maintain timberland, a percent of dead and diseased trees are normal. It is highly unlikely, at least in the species I’m familiar with, that a tree will just fall over.
Evolution tends to select against that kind of thing.
Notably, parks get sued pretty frequently when trees drop limbs on people or trees fall on folks stuff, under exactly this principle. It works too.
Yes, but there is generally not a requirement to inspect trees. Even a tree being dead is not sufficient to prove negligence. Dead trees don’t fall over immediately.
Liability for property damage also doesn’t require strict negligence in most cases either.
See my comments above regarding some other factors that make it unlikely they could actually get damages (or it would be worthwhile even trying) in this case.
But it doesn’t remove the technical liability, most likely.
The most common claims that do actually get paid out is for things like public parks, street trees, etc.
Someone gets hit by a falling branch at a public park, or their car gets totaled by a falling tree, they tend to get sue happy.
> It is highly unlikely, at least in the species I’m familiar with, that a tree will just fall over.
>
> Evolution tends to select against that kind of thing.
This is correct when the trees are bordered on all sides by more trees. On the forest edge - which is what this seems to be - things tend to be different though and the occasional tree does fall due to storm, rock slides, wildlife activities, water erosion and more. Especially when the forest edge is relatively new, i.e. the bordering land has been cleared somewhere within the last 40-50 years these edge effects can be sizeable. Eventually the forest edge thins out once the larger trees have all fallen to create a more gradual progression from open land to forest and there will be fewer large trees to fall on bordering land.
Unless negligence is involve (like an arborist being hired to condemn a tree), they’re generally considered and act of god. They’re the responsibility of the property they fall onto.
So, in the case of OP, the situation is unfortunate, but it’s on him to maintain his properties and his fence lines within his properties. It’s convenient the state has a fence along part of his property, but it’s not their responsibility to fix it for adjacent lots.