Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California
My husband and I live in an apartment complex. We have two parking permits, one for our covered parking, and the second for any un marked free parking space. At about 2 am last night, another tenant heard noise from the parking lot, and when she went out, saw a very large tree branch laying across my husband's car and the car parked beside it. The roof of my husbands car is smashed and there is damage along the edges of the roof where it meets the back windows. The car next to it has its roof caved in, and the passenger window/door frame is smashed as well. At 2 am, the tenant witnessed the city remove the branch from on top of the vehicles and lay it next to my husbands car on the ground. The tenant tried to find the owners of the vehicles by contacting after hours emergency maintenance but was unsuccessful. My husband found his car at 6:30 am and we then proceeded to file a claim with our insurance company, contacted after hours emergency maintenance, and our management. Management told us they are not insured for the tenant's property, so we will have to go based off of our own insurance policy. My question is, IS the property owner at all responsible? It is private property, and they had recently hired a company to trim the these particular trees. The branch being as large as it is, was either cut incorrectly, or had rot. The weather in no way played a part in the tree branch falling because we didnt experience high winds last night. Thanks.
1 Answer from Attorneys
Owners of trees are usually responsible for damage done by falling limbs. The main exception is when the setting is quite rural and the trees are growing wild, as in a forest; in such situations the owner is not expected to do inspections and provide care for each one. When the limb-falling incident is due to the negligence of the owner's contractor, the injured party would be entitled to pursue either or both the owner and the contractor. This is the kind of thing I would expect to be handled by the owner's (landlord's) insurance, without a complaint.
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