Legal Question in Civil Rights Law in California

This should be reposted for either contract or tort law questions, depending on who the parties are.

Technically both the person who cut the tree as well as the land owner who owns and directed the trees be cut down are responsible. Being unlicensed, the contractor faces a whole other series of problems outside this scope. However, the trees belonged to the land owner, and the contractor, as his agent was cutting them down at his direction. The agent is responsible, and under the legal concept of respondeat superior, the agent's superior, the landowner, is also responsible.