Legal Question in Civil Litigation in California

I had a dispute with a tenant on my boyfriend�s ranch when I raise pheasants for training my gun dogs. My flight pen of birds is approx 30 feet from the tenant�s house and held 240 eight week old pheasants. The tenant filed for a Restraining Order saying that in the argument I threatened his family and pets. I was ordered to stay 20 yards away from the tenants which meant I could not get to my flight pen. I had my boyfriend feeding and watering the birds and thought that it would only be the matter of two week because then we would go to court and get to the truth and the RO would be removed. The day of court the judge who would normally hear the case was out and the temporary judge that was sitting did not want to hear the case so the RO got extended and we would not rescheduled for three more weeks. This put my birds in great jeopardy; my boyfriend was not skilled to take care of the birds and I would have started using some of the birds by then. By the time we got to court after five weeks and I was then allowed back to my birds it was devastating. I had a choice of ringing 240 necks or let them go and let nature take it�s course. The birds were stressed from over crowding, sick from poor balance of feed and clean conditons � I would have started taking birds out of the pen to use for training, in five weeks I would have probably gone through 70 or 80 of those birds. There is some skill in raising these birds and as much as he tried my boyfriend was not able to do it properly.
I feel the tenant should be responsible for my damages � the loss of the entire flock � because it was there trumped up charges that kept me from properly caring for my birds. If they do not prevail with the RO and it�s looking like they will not, how do I claim damages for the replacement cost of my birds?

Asked on 8/27/10, 7:27 pm

2 Answers from Attorneys

George Shers Law Offices of Georges H. Shers

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If you can shows that the application for a RO had no reasonable basis, which may be difficult to do, you could sue for negligent interference with business advantage, negligence as to bring the TRO, intentional tort, etc. If they have renter's insurance it would not apply as to intentional torts.

You will have some problems as to damages as you will have to show that they could reasonably anticipate the replacement worker would do a much poorer job than you.

Answered on 9/02/10, 8:26 am

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