Tree and Neighbor Law For Homeowners and Professionals

SNAP, CRACKLE AND POP An arborist defendant’s nightmare – the troop of Brownies onto whom your client’s tree toppled.

TREE HUGS CAR, THEN COURT HUGS TREE What does the Amazon rainforest have to do with a ’77 Mercedes-Benz?

CHUTZPAH, CONNECTICUT STYLE So you like your wild mountain property, with its clean, sparkling streams and majestic trees?

A MARMOT IS A VARMINT Cute … but varmints It seems that the furry little critters called marmots dig holes and generally make pests of themselves.

“WHOSE WOODS THESE ARE… I do not know,” wrote Robert Frost in Stopping in the Woods on a Snowy Evening.

IT DOES NOT MAKE SENSE Every good trial lawyer knows how to employ the Chewbacca Defense.

A GAME OF INCHES Baseball, they say, is a game of inches.

THE OYES DON’T HAVE IT You sort of wonder how a kerfuffle over some lilac bushes and a bridal wreath bush in a backyard can end up in the state supreme court.

RIGHT THING, WRONG REASON The right things usually get done for the wrong reasons.

BLINDED BY THE LIGHT None of us really knew what the lyrics were to that great piece of mid-’70s music by Manfred Mann’s Earth Band (written and first recorded by Bruce Springsteen).

YOU PAYS YOUR MONEY AND YOU TAKES YOUR CHANCE Over the past few days, we have seen several divergent views on boundary tree ownership: the Colorado view that ownership depends on the intent of the property owner; the Illinois view that ownership is determ…

NIGHT OF THE ATTACK ROOSTERS There is little doubt that we in this country enjoy pampering like nowhere else.

TREE TRESPASS LOTTERY Today’s case has a lot of moving parts.

FISTS, NOSES AND TREES Everyone’s heard the old legal canard that “your liberty to swing my fist ends where my nose begins.”

New Haven, Connecticut, Independent, September 10, 2026: Farewell, Beech Trees.

A KINDER, GENTLER MASSACHUSETTS RULE We saw earlier this week that there’re some pretty tough nuts out in Washington.

WASHINGTON STATE – GREAT COFFEE, GREAT VISTAS… AND GREAT CONFUSION I have to confess that, although I am a proud Midwesterner, I love the State of Washington.

FOOTBALL IS (NOT SO) BACK!

ALL YOUR TREE ARE BELONG TO US If you were not following Internet culture (as oxymoronic as that phrase may be) a quarter century ago or so, you might not recognize the badly-mangled taunt “All your base are belong to us,” derived from the poorly-translat…

WHEN A TREE GROWS ACROSS A BOUNDARY – AND CAUSES A NUISANCE Trees often don’t start out straddling property lines.

THE MORE BOUNDARY TREES YOU OWN, THE FEWER RIGHTS YOU HAVE The rule regarding ownership of boundary-line trees is strange and malleable.

LOVE, BOUNDARY TREE STYLE Tree law fans (and I consider myself to be a fan) waited a long time for the Colorado Supreme Court to decide Love v.

HEDGE FUN The other day, we found ourselves reading a fascinating brief – and only a lawyer can employ the adjective “fascinating” to describe the noun “brief” – that argued against what the writer called the “common-hedge rule.”