THE LANGUAGE OF TREE LAW
Welcome to the world of tree law, a little-known corner of the legal system that deals with everything tree-related, from fatalities caused by falling branches to disputes over a tree blocking a view. Did someone sneak onto your property and cut your tree without your consent? Better get yourself a tree lawyer. Were you hit by the falling branch of a decrepit city tree? Lawyer up and head to tree court.
While it’s likely that disputes and rules involving trees have been around for as long as trees have been considered property, many of the tree laws currently followed in the United States find their root in English common law from hundreds of years ago. Back then, the rules governing trees were fairly simple. If a your neighbor’s tree branches hung onto your property, for example, you were allowed, under common law, to cut them back to your boundary line. If that tree branch had fruit hanging on it, however, that fruit was essentially forbidden—under common law, any fruit hanging on a tree belonged to the owner of the tree, as to discourage neighbors from feasting on the fruits of someone else’s arboreal labors.
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