Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

Re: illegal entry to property and threats

You paint this as a case of lawyers circling the wagons to protect another lawyer, I don't believe it.

If four lawyers rejected her case, maybe there is more to this story than you are telling us.

Re: illegal entry to property and threats

If we assume you have told us all the relevant facts [why would he admit he did it if he did not intend to pay something?], the explanation may be easier that the notion that all attorney love every member of the profession so much that they would conspire against her. You did not say what the value of the trees are, but I will assume that they are worth no more than $12,000.

Some 6 years or so ago, most plaintiff's personal injury attorney who handled the less serious cases considered that the minimum value of a case they would handle had to be at least $15,000, as that meant they would get about $5,000 as an attorney's fee. The assumption was that in most cases 1/3 of the fee goes to overhead costs, 1/3rd to the attorney handling the case, and 1/3rd profit to the firm. If the attorney is a solo practitioner and wants to earn about $100 per hour net, then he can afford to put in about 33 hours on the case. Most practicing attorney will say may calculations are incorret and that even less time can be devoted.

You have an attorney who does trial work so probably is not afraid about going to trial. He is going to fight everything and try to pile paperwork after paperwork on your attorney. A good guess is that the case might easily take at least 30 hours to reach a trial verdict.

So the attorney sees it as a case where he must prove the other party did it, since it was an intentional act there is no insurance coverage and no in house counsel with the desire to settle the case at some reasonable amount so they can get to the rest of their case load, put up with a pain in the neck opposing party who knows all the tricks of not co-operating and who will be overly nasty, and will certainly have to go to the courthouse steps before the case will settle for an amount his client will think is too small.

If you were an attorney, would you take such a case? Probably not.

Possible options? Get the attorney really angry by reporting him to the State Bar for the threats. Keep looking for local attorney's to handle the case, hire a semi-retired attorney who works out of their house so is willing to accept a much lower rate of compensation sue in Small Claims Court. Look into possibility if trees were far apart and took sometime to cut each one down, you could argue that cutting each tree is a separate tort so you can sue in SCC for $7,500 per tree? Tell the attorney that you can not afford to replace the trees with similar ones but a friend said bamboo would be a great replacement as it would very quickly make it own fence along the line separating the two properties [attorney will understand that he will now have bamboo roots coming into his yard].

Wish your friend good luck, if the facts are accurate.

Re: illegal entry to property and threats

It might be helpful to have the prospective client remind the attorneys that a successful plaintiff in a tree-injury case is entitled to treble damages. The law is recited twice in slightly different language at Civil Code section 3346 and Code of Civil Procedure sections 733 and 734.