Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

Re: Falling tree damage

People are liable for financial injury to others caused by their negligence. First-year law students are taught that actionable negligence is established when the plaintiff can plead and prove the following elements of negligence: (1) existence of a duty to use care in doing or omitting to do something to avoid harm to another; (2) defendant's breach of the duty; (3) compensable harm to the plaintiff, which was caused by defendant's breach both (4) factually and (5) proximately.

#4 asks, "'But for' defendant's breach, would the harm have occurred?" #5 asks, "Is the causal connection between the breach and the harm close enough so that defendant should have forseen the possibility of the harm occurring?"

In the case of a falling tree, the most difficult element for plaintiff to establish is #1. What was your neighbor's duty with respect to the tree? To refrain from planting trees in the first place? To cut them down when they reach 40 feet? Something else?

Perhaps an aggressive lawyer, possibly aided by an arborist as an expert witness, can construct a theory on facts like: "Whiteacre Canyon is notorious for high winds. Purple pines are known to be shallow-rooted and prone to blow over. Therefore, defendant owed plaintiff a duty not to allow purple pines to continue to grow so close to the property line. It was forseeable that they would blow over sooner or later. And they did, causing plaintiff's harm."

Negligent maintenance of landscape trees, such as failure to prune, failure to inspect for decaying limbs, etc. is sometimes the basis for a successful tree-damage suit in an urban setting. As the setting gets more rural, it become increasingly difficult to show that the landowner owed and duty to inspect and prune.

So, overall, I can't say whether the neighbor is liable or not, but it would take more than the facts of ownership, windstorm, toppling and damage to win the case. You would also have to show duty and breach.