Case Title: Scholes v. Lambirth Trucking Co.

Citation: 

Docket Number: S241825

State: california

Court: California Supreme Court

Date: 2020-02-20T00:00:00Z

Document:
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF 
CALIFORNIA 
 
VINCENT E. SCHOLES, 
Plaintiff and Appellant, 
v. 
LAMBIRTH TRUCKING COMPANY, 
Defendant and Respondent. 
 
S241825 
 
Third Appellate District 
C070770 
 
Colusa County Superior Court 
CV23759 
 
 
 
February 20, 2020 
 
Justice Cuéllar authored the opinion of the Court, in which 
Chief Justice Cantil-Sakauye and Justices Liu, Kruger, Groban, 
Aronson, and Banke concurred.
                                        
  
Associate Justice of the Court of Appeal, Fourth Appellate 
District, Division Three, assigned by the Chief Justice pursuant 
to article VI, section 6 of the California Constitution. 
  
Associate Justice of the Court of Appeal, First Appellate 
District, Division One, assigned by the Chief Justice pursuant 
to article VI, section 6 of the California Constitution. 
 
1 
 
SCHOLES v. LAMBIRTH TRUCKING COMPANY 
S241825 
 
Opinion of the Court by Cuéllar, J. 
 
This case arises from a pair of entwined risks all too 
familiar to Californians:  fire, and what happens when fire 
spreads.  Civil Code section 3346 provides enhanced damages to 
plaintiffs suffering “wrongful injuries” (id., subd. (a)) to timber, 
trees, or underwood.1  The statute generally provides for treble 
(triple) damages, but only double damages “where the trespass 
was casual or involuntary” and only actual damages in other 
specified factual scenarios.  (Ibid.)  The relevant statute of 
limitations where a plaintiff properly seeks such damages is five 
years (id., subd. (c)).  But can section 3346 be used at all to sue 
a person who inadvertently lets fire spread to someone else’s 
property?   
Plaintiff Vincent Scholes alleges that defendant Lambirth 
Trucking Company (Lambirth) negligently allowed a fire to 
spread from Lambirth’s property to Scholes’s property, harming 
some of Scholes’s trees.  This claim would be untimely under the 
three-year statute of limitations that applies to ordinary 
trespass, but Scholes contends that section 3346’s enhanced 
damages and five-year statute of limitations applies insofar as 
he seeks damages from injury to those trees.  In contrast, 
Lambirth argues that section 3346 does not apply to property 
damage from a fire negligently allowed to escape from the 
defendant’s property.  Instead, Lambirth asserts, the fire 
liability provisions found in Health and Safety Code sections 
                                        
1  
All unlabeled statutory references are to the Civil Code. 
SCHOLES v. LAMBIRTH TRUCKING COMPANY 
Opinion of the Court by Cuéllar, J. 
 
 
2 
13007, 13008, and 13009 govern Scholes’s claim and only allow 
recovery of actual damages from an escaping fire.  Those 
provisions state that a person responsible for the spread of fire 
is liable for “any damages” (Health & Saf. Code, § 13007) and 
fire suppression costs, and do not provide an extended statute of 
limitations.  
What we conclude is that the five-year statute of 
limitations and heightened damages provisions of section 3346 
are inapplicable to damages to timber, trees, or underwood from 
negligently escaping fires.  Section 3346, subdivision (a) does not 
apply to all “injuries” to trees or all “injuries” arising out of 
common law trespasses.  Instead, section 3346 is best read as a 
statute targeting “timber trespass” — the kind of direct, 
intentional injury to trees on the property of another that would 
be perpetrated by actions such as cutting down a neighbor’s 
trees — and sets out a special scheme of graduated penalties 
aimed 
at 
deterring 
such trespass 
and 
any 
resulting 
misappropriation of timber.  Harmful though the Lambirth fire 
is, this is not a punitive scheme that fits it.  Because Scholes 
cannot rely on section 3346’s extended statute of limitations and 
his complaint was otherwise untimely, we affirm the Court of 
Appeal’s decision.  
I. 
In 2003, Lambirth began operating a company making 
wood chips, sawdust, and products from rice hulls on the land 
next to Scholes’s property.  To make some of these soil 
enhancement products, Lambirth’s company grinds wood.  Some 
of this wood, along with rice hulls, blew onto Scholes’s property 
over time.  On May 12, 2007, there was a fire at Lambirth’s 
business.  Scholes soon complained to Lambirth about the wood 
SCHOLES v. LAMBIRTH TRUCKING COMPANY 
Opinion of the Court by Cuéllar, J. 
 
 
3 
chips and rice hulls that had blown onto Scholes’s property.  
Local authorities also warned Lambirth about storing these 
wood products.  Lambirth began removing the wood chips and 
rice hulls on Scholes’s property.  But on May 21, 2007, another 
fire broke out on Lambirth’s property –– and in short order, it 
leapt onto Scholes’s property.  
On May 21, 2010, Scholes filed suit against Lambirth and 
its insurer, Financial Pacific Insurance Company (Financial 
Pacific).  The initial complaint alleged lost use of property as 
well as general damages and property damages.  A few months 
later, on January 24, 2011, Scholes filed a first amended 
complaint alleging damages to property, loss of crops, and lost 
use of property.  Lambirth and Financial Pacific filed a motion 
for judgment on the pleadings and argued that Scholes failed to 
allege sufficient facts to state a cause of action.  The trial court 
granted the motion with leave to amend.   
Scholes filed a second amended complaint on August 9, 
2011.  It alleged that Lambirth trespassed by allowing wood 
chips and rice hulls to enter Scholes’s property, which allowed 
the fire to spread to Scholes’s property.  Lambirth also failed to 
supply any water source, the complaint alleged, to suppress a 
fire that might ignite these materials.  In October 2011, Scholes 
agreed to dismiss with prejudice the case against Financial 
Pacific as well as its officers and directors, leaving Lambirth as 
the sole remaining defendant.  Lambirth filed a demurrer and 
argued that the statute of limitations barred Scholes’s claim.  
The trial court granted the demurrer on statute of limitation 
grounds with leave to amend.    
On November 15, 2011, Scholes filed a third amended 
complaint alleging three causes of action:  general negligence 
SCHOLES v. LAMBIRTH TRUCKING COMPANY 
Opinion of the Court by Cuéllar, J. 
 
 
4 
(what the Court of Appeal characterized as “negligent 
trespass”), intentional trespass, and strict liability.  Under the 
first cause of action, this complaint alleged that “wood chips, 
sawdust, 
rice 
hulls, 
and 
other 
combustible 
material” 
accumulated on Lambirth’s property, and that Lambirth “failed 
to either control or suppress” a fire, which “spread to the realty 
of [Scholes]” and “destroyed personal property, growing crops,” 
motor vehicles, and other mechanical equipment.  It also alleged 
damage to a walnut orchard and requested enhanced damages 
for the injury to the orchard under section 3346 and Code of Civil 
Procedure section 733.  Section 3346, subdivision (a) provides 
treble or double damages for “wrongful injuries to timber, trees, 
or underwood upon the land of another, or removal thereof.”  
Code of Civil Procedure section 733 similarly provides treble 
damages for malicious or willful cutting, carrying away, 
girdling, or “otherwise injur[ing]” timber or trees, but provides 
no special statute of limitations.  Lambirth filed a demurrer and 
argued that Scholes’s claims were barred by the statute of 
limitations, and also that Scholes failed to state a claim for 
intentional trespass or strict liability.  The trial court granted 
the demurrer without leave to amend.  Scholes appealed. 
Scholes argued before the Court of Appeal that his third 
amended complaint was timely because: (1) Code of Civil 
Procedure section 338, subdivision (b) applies a three-year 
statute of limitations to an action for trespass upon or injury to 
real property; and (2) the second complaint, where Scholes first 
alleged such an action, related back to the original timely 
complaint.  The Court of Appeal agreed that the three-year 
statute of limitations applied but concluded Scholes’s amended 
complaint did not relate back.  Alternatively, Scholes asserted 
SCHOLES v. LAMBIRTH TRUCKING COMPANY 
Opinion of the Court by Cuéllar, J. 
 
 
5 
his first cause of action was subject to section 3346’s extended 
five-year statute of limitations because it alleged damage to 
trees (§ 3346, subd. (c)).  The Court of Appeal rejected this 
argument too, holding that section 3346 does not apply where 
the cause of the harm is the negligent spread of fire.  In doing 
so, the court relied on Gould v. Madonna (1970) 5 Cal.App.3d 
404 (Gould), which held that section 3346 does not apply to fire 
damage caused by negligence, and rejected the contrary decision 
in Kelly v. CB&I Constructors, Inc. (2009) 179 Cal.App.4th 442 
(Kelly).  We granted review to decide whether section 3346 
applies to fire damage. 
II. 
Section 3346, located in the “Penal Damages” article of the 
Civil Code, provides the following:  “For wrongful injuries to 
timber, trees, or underwood upon the land of another, or removal 
thereof, the measure of damages is three times such sum as 
would compensate for the actual detriment, except that where 
the 
trespass 
was 
casual 
or 
involuntary, or 
that 
the 
defendant . . . had probable cause to believe that the land on 
which the trespass was committed was his own . . . , the 
measure of damages shall be twice the sum as would 
compensate for the actual detriment . . . .”  (§ 3346, subd. (a).)  
The statute limits recovery to actual damages “where the wood 
was taken by the authority of highway officers for the purpose 
of repairing a public highway or bridge upon the land or 
adjoining it.”  (Ibid.)  Subdivision (b) provides the same “for any 
trespass committed while acting in reliance upon a survey of 
boundary lines” by a licensed surveyor if “[t]he trespass was 
committed by a defendant who either himself procured, or whose 
principal, lessor, or immediate predecessor in title procured the 
SCHOLES v. LAMBIRTH TRUCKING COMPANY 
Opinion of the Court by Cuéllar, J. 
 
 
6 
survey to be made.”  (Id., subd. (b).)  The Legislature originally 
enacted section 3346 when it adopted the Civil Code in 1872, 
borrowing from a draft New York Civil Code.  (Civ. Code, former 
§ 3346, repealed by Stats. 1957, ch. 2346, § 2, p. 4076; see Fluor 
Corp. v. Superior Court (2015) 61 Cal.4th 1175, 1200; see also 
Fulle v. Kanani (2017) 7 Cal.App.5th 1305, 1310, fn. 2 (Fulle).)  
To determine whether this provision encompasses 
negligent fire damage, we start with the statute’s language and 
structure in order to “ascertain and effectuate the law’s intended 
purpose.”  (Weatherford v. City of San Rafael (2017) 2 Cal.5th 
1241, 1246 (Weatherford); Goodman v. Lozano (2010) 47 Cal.4th 
1327, 1332 [“Our primary goal is to determine and give effect to 
the underlying purpose of the law”]; People v. Valencia (2017) 3 
Cal.5th 347, 357 [“ ‘[t]he words of the statute must be construed 
in context, keeping in mind the statutory purpose’ ”].)  This 
inquiry requires us to start by considering the ordinary meaning 
of the statutory language, the language of related provisions, 
and the structure of the statutory scheme.  (Weatherford, at p. 
1246; see also Larkin v. Workers’ Compensation Appeals Bd. 
(2015) 62 Cal.4th 152, 157-158.)  If the language of a statutory 
provision remains unclear after we consider its terms, structure, 
and related statutory provisions, we may take account of 
extrinsic sources — such as legislative history.  (Winn v. Pioneer 
Medical Group, Inc. (2016) 63 Cal.4th 148, 156; see also Holland 
v. Assessment Appeals Bd. No. 1 (2014) 58 Cal.4th 482, 490.)   
Also guiding our inquiry is the designation of section 
3346’s treble and double damages provisions as penal in nature 
–– provisions our Courts of Appeal have construed strictly for 
more than 50 years.  (See, e.g., Fulle, supra, 7 Cal.App.5th at p. 
1316; Drewry v. Welch (1965) 236 Cal.App.2d 159, 172-173 
SCHOLES v. LAMBIRTH TRUCKING COMPANY 
Opinion of the Court by Cuéllar, J. 
 
 
7 
(Drewry); Ghera v. Sugar Pine Lumber Co. (1964) 224 
Cal.App.2d 88, 92.)  At a minimum, we should interpret section 
3346 to reach only conduct where fixed imposition of treble and 
double damages reasonably furthers the aims of punishment 
and deterrence.  (See, e.g., Neal v. Farmers Ins. Exchange (1978) 
21 Cal.3d 910, 928 [“the function of punitive damages is not 
served by an award which, in light of . . . the gravity of the 
particular act, exceeds the level necessary to properly punish 
and deter”].)   
A. 
Two terms in section 3346 bear on whether the statute 
encompasses damage caused by negligently spread fires.  The 
harm at issue must involve a “wrongful injury” to timber, trees, 
or underwood.  (§ 3346, subd. (a).)  And given the terms used to 
describe the separate penalties for which the statute provides, 
it also appears any actionable harm must involve or at least 
occur in connection with a “trespass.”  (Ibid. [requiring the 
award of treble damages for “wrongful injuries to timber, trees, 
or underwood” except that double damages apply “where the 
trespass was casual or involuntary” (italics added)].)  The Kelly 
Court of Appeal held that the language of section 3346 is “not 
ambiguous” because “[u]nder any reasonable interpretation, fire 
damage constitutes an ‘injur[y]’ to a tree” and “[t]here is no 
dispute that the fire was a trespass . . . .”  (Kelly, supra, 179 
Cal.App.4th at p. 463.) 
Contrary to Kelly, we find more elusive the type of 
wrongful injuries and trespasses to which section 3346 applies.  
The ordinary meaning of the word injury is broad and could 
conceivably apply, as Scholes suggests, to any injury — 
including fire damage.  (See Las Animas etc. Land Co. v. Fatjo 
SCHOLES v. LAMBIRTH TRUCKING COMPANY 
Opinion of the Court by Cuéllar, J. 
 
 
8 
(1908) 9 Cal.App. 318, 323, 319 [holding that it was “too clear 
for argument” that fire damage was an “injury to real 
property”].)  But we do not interpret words in a vacuum.  The 
most sensible way to understand the statute’s pairing of 
“wrongful injuries to timber, trees, or underwood” with its 
reference to “the trespass” is as a limitation on the statute’s 
scope, to cover only those injuries that necessarily involve some 
sort of trespass.  (§ 3346, subd. (a).)  Put differently, “trespass” 
–– given its position in the statutory scheme –– sheds light on 
which injuries to trees are best understood as “wrongful 
injuries” for purposes of section 3346.   
But “trespass,” too, can have a meaning that’s broader or 
narrower.  In certain contexts “trespass” serves as a general 
reference to unlawful harmful action affecting a person or 
property (see Bouvier’s Law Dict. (14th ed. 1878) p. 608 [“Any 
unlawful act committed with violence, actual or implied, to the 
person, property, or rights of another”]) — though Scholes does 
not advance such a broad view.  Instead, he contends that even 
if we interpret trespass in section 3346 to require the elements 
of a trespass cause of action, Lambirth’s negligently spread fire 
still fits the bill.  He points to Coley v. Hecker (1928) 206 Cal. 22 
(Coley), where we held that “ ‘trespasses may be committed by 
consequential and indirect injuries as well as by direct and 
forcible injuries.’ ”  (Id. at p. 28.)  With any operative distinction 
between “direct” and “indirect” trespass long eliminated in 
California, Scholes views section 3346 as readily encompassing 
an injury to trees from the negligent trespassory intrusion of 
fire.  (See Elton v. Anheuser-Busch Beverage Group, Inc. (1996) 
50 Cal.App.4th 1301, 1307 (Elton) [“When negligently inflicted 
SCHOLES v. LAMBIRTH TRUCKING COMPANY 
Opinion of the Court by Cuéllar, J. 
 
 
9 
with resulting actual damage, [an invasion by fire] may 
constitute a trespass”].)   
Lambirth urges us to embrace the narrower construction 
adopted by the Gould court.  Under this view, section 3346 refers 
not to the common law action of trespass but rather the kind of 
acts long thought of as “timber trespass” or “timber 
misappropriation” — essentially, intentionally severing or 
removing timber from another’s land without the owner’s 
consent.  (Gould, supra, 5 Cal.App.3d at p. 408; see, e.g., Fulle, 
supra, 7 Cal.App.5th at p. 1310; Drewry, supra, 236 Cal.App.2d 
at p. 177.)  Given the prevalence of timber trespass statutes at 
the time of the statute’s enactment in 1872 (see generally 1 
Kinney, Essentials of American Timber Law, ch. VIII (1917) 
(Kinney) [tracing the history of timber trespass legislation in 
America]), this too is a plausible interpretation of section 3346’s 
language.  (See People v. Cruz (1996) 13 Cal.4th 764, 775 (Cruz) 
[“The words of a statute are to be interpreted in the sense in 
which they would have been understood at the time of the 
enactment”].)   And if this statutory provision is best understood 
as yet another timber trespass statute, that reading would in 
turn support a more limited understanding of “injury,” whereby 
the term encompasses only the kinds of direct, intentional 
injuries performed to effectuate such removal.   
We conclude that section 3346’s requirements correspond 
to timber trespass — direct, intentional injuries to timber, trees, 
or underwood on the land of another — as the ill to which its 
scheme of penal damages applies.  Preliminarily, we observe 
that the statute’s structure is incongruous with consequential 
trespasses involving unintended entries like an out-of-control 
fire.  Section 3346 provides that double, rather than treble, 
SCHOLES v. LAMBIRTH TRUCKING COMPANY 
Opinion of the Court by Cuéllar, J. 
 
 
10 
damages would apply if the trespass was “casual or involuntary” 
or if the defendant had “probable cause” (id., subd. (a)) to believe 
he or she owned the land, and awards only actual damages for 
situations in which the defendant enters the land under 
authority or “while acting in reliance upon a survey of boundary 
lines which improperly fixes the location of a boundary line.”   
(id., subd. (b)).  The Legislature thus graduated penalties 
depending on the reasonableness of a breach of property lines:  
treble damages if the breach was made in bad faith; double 
damages if the breach was made based on reasonable belief of 
ownership or if the defendant crossed the property lines by 
accident; and single damages if the defendant took affirmative, 
but ultimately insufficient, steps to respect boundary lines by 
engaging a surveyor.  Relying primarily on these considerations 
to determine damages makes the most sense if the defendant 
necessarily intends his presence on the land.2  Accidental 
invasions like the spread of fire do not fit easily into this 
property-line-focused framework.  If Scholes’s interpretation 
prevailed, it’s far from clear why the Legislature would vary 
damages according to culpability for a property line breach as 
opposed to the injuring act. 
The statute’s inclusion of “casual or involuntary” 
trespasses (§ 3346, subd. (a)) — before 1957, “casual and 
                                        
2  
“Presence” could mean the defendant’s personal presence 
or presence through some agent or instrumentality.  (See, e.g., 
Jongeward v. BNSF R. Co. (Wash. 2012) 278 P.3d 157, 166 
(Jongeward) [“ ‘a person who stands at his or her fence line and 
intentionally sprays herbicide on a neighbor’s trees’ engages in 
conduct prohibited by the statute because the person commits a 
direct trespass and causes immediate injury to the plaintiff’s 
trees”].)  Our analysis applies to both scenarios. 
SCHOLES v. LAMBIRTH TRUCKING COMPANY 
Opinion of the Court by Cuéllar, J. 
 
 
11 
involuntary” trespasses (former § 3346, italics added) — does 
not foreclose this interpretation.  In the mid-19th century, 
“ ‘casual’ ” would have meant accidental or negligent as opposed 
to “ ‘designedly and under a claim of right.’ ”  (Matanuska Elec. 
Ass’n, Inc. v. Weissler (Alaska 1986) 723 P.2d 600, 607.)  A 
trespass might be “accidental” with respect to the trespasser’s 
volition in entering the property or with respect to his or her 
intent to interfere with the possessory rights of another.  (Cf. 
Miller v. National Broadcasting Co. (1986) 187 Cal.App.3d 1463, 
1480-1481 [defendant was mistaken as to the wrongness of his 
acts but nevertheless “liable for an intentional entry” because 
he “inten[ded] to be at the place on the land where the trespass 
allegedly occurred”].)  Courts have disagreed as to whether 
various timber trespass statutes contemplate one brand of 
accident or another, or both, when referring to casual or 
involuntary trespasses.  (Compare Matanuska, supra, at p. 607 
and Wyatt v. Sweitz (Or. 1997) 934 P.2d 544, 546 [“ ‘Casual or 
involuntary’ . . . encompasses non-negligent, non-volitional 
trespass”] with Jongeward, supra, (2012) 278 P.3d at p. 166 
[“Ultimately, the legislature enacted the timber trespass statute 
to deter specific conduct and punish a voluntary offender”] and 
Whitaker v. McGee (N.Y.App.Div. 1985) 111 A.D.2d 459, 461 
(Whitaker).)   
New York’s experience is illuminating, particularly as 
California’s 1872 Legislature found its inspiration for section 
3346 in the laws of New York.  Interpreting an analogous 
statute, New York courts concluded that “a trespass may be 
characterized as ‘involuntary’ where the trespasser acted in a 
good-faith reasonable belief in his right to harvest the trees.”  
(Whitaker, supra, 111 A.D.2d at p. 461; see, e.g., Braman v. 
SCHOLES v. LAMBIRTH TRUCKING COMPANY 
Opinion of the Court by Cuéllar, J. 
 
 
12 
Rochester Gas & Elec. Corp. (N.Y.App.Div. 1976) 54 A.D.2d 174, 
176; Greene v. Mindon Const. Corp. (N.Y. 1959) 188 N.Y.S.2d 
633, 635.)  In context, then, we have reason to read “casual or 
involuntary” as remaining consistent with an interpretation of 
the statute reaching trespassers intentionally present on the 
land with negligence as to their right to be there — for example, 
due to mistakes about boundary lines — but not accidental 
entries like Lambirth’s spreading fire.  (§ 3346, subd. (a).)  This 
interpretation of “casual or involuntary” (ibid.) fits seamlessly 
with the apparent purpose of the 1957 repeal and reenactment 
of section 3346, which increased the damages for casual 
trespasses from actual to double damages.  
Although section 3346, subdivision (a) fails to define the 
“wrongful injuries” that must flow from the defendant’s 
intentional entry onto the land, surrounding language 
elucidates that the injuries, too, must likely be the kind of direct, 
intentional acts involved in timber trespass.  For starters, 
subdivision (a) mentions “removal” of the timber, trees, or 
underwood, and in its exception for officially authorized public 
highway repairs it presupposes that “the wood was taken.”  
Notwithstanding the statute’s listing of injuries and removal in 
the disjunctive (see § 3346, subd. (a)), the statute’s discussion of 
injuries involving removal and severance suggests that 
reasonable legislators enacting this language would have 
understood “wrongful injuries” to encompass direct acts 
connected to and in furtherance of removal or severance.  (Ibid.)  
This conclusion also fits our practice of construing words by 
taking account of the meaning of surrounding words.  (See 
People v. Prunty (2015) 62 Cal.4th 59, 73 (Prunty).) 
SCHOLES v. LAMBIRTH TRUCKING COMPANY 
Opinion of the Court by Cuéllar, J. 
 
 
13 
Even stronger evidence for this construction is evident in 
the relationship between section 3346 and Code of Civil 
Procedure section 733.  The Legislature first enacted Code of 
Civil Procedure section 733 in 1851 (Stats. 1851, ch. 5, § 251, p. 
92), codifying it in the 1872 Code of Civil Procedure at the same 
time as Civil Code section 3346 (see Code Comm., Revised Laws 
of the State of California (1871) pp. 176 & 566 (hereinafter 
Proposed Revised Laws (1871))).  Code of Civil Procedure section 
733 states the following: “Any person who cuts down or carries 
off any wood or underwood, tree, or timber, or girdles or 
otherwise injures any tree or timber on the land of another 
person[,] . . . without lawful authority, is liable to the owner of 
such land . . . for treble the amount of damages which may be 
assessed therefor, in a civil action, in any Court having 
jurisdiction.”  (Italics added.)  The Legislature has not amended 
Code of Civil Procedure section 733 since its inception. 
Because section 3346 and Code of Civil Procedure section 
733 relate to the same subject, we construe them together and 
endeavor to give both consistent effect.  (See, e.g., Swall v. 
Anderson (1943) 60 Cal.App.2d 825, 829 (Swall) [“As sections 
733 of the Code of Civil Procedure and 3346 of the Civil Code 
relate to the same subject matter they must be construed 
together”]; Drewry, supra, 236 Cal.App.2d at p. 180 [reading 
these provisions together to find treble damages to be 
discretionary]; see also City of Alhambra v. County of Los 
Angeles (2012) 55 Cal.4th 707, 722 [“When code sections address 
the same matter or subject, ‘we must construe them together as 
one statute’ ”].)  The legislative history further underscores the 
close relationship.  Both statutes trace back to a set of early 
SCHOLES v. LAMBIRTH TRUCKING COMPANY 
Opinion of the Court by Cuéllar, J. 
 
 
14 
19th-century New York statutes with similar structure and 
language.  (See 2 N.Y. Rev. Stat. (1829) 338, §§ 1-3.) 
We recognized long ago that Civil Code section 3346’s 
tiered damages scheme “qualifie[s]” Code of Civil Procedure 
section 733’s imposition of treble damages for the prohibited 
acts.  (Stewart v. Sefton (1895) 108 Cal. 197, 207 (Stewart).)  
Thus read against Code of Civil Procedure section 733, section 
3346 serves as a “measure of damages” (§ 3346, subd. (a)) for 
injuries that are legally wrongful under the former’s particular 
trespass cause of action, rather than the measure of damages 
for all common law trespass causes of action.  Accordingly, we 
must construe “injuries” in section 3346, subdivision (a) as 
having the same meaning as “injures” in Code of Civil Procedure 
section 733.  In contrast to section 3346, subdivision (a)’s 
somewhat vague description of the “wrongful injuries” it covers, 
Code of Civil Procedure section 733 is more precise, prohibiting 
cutting down, carrying off, and girdling or otherwise injuring 
trees.  Cutting down, carrying off, and girdling all connote 
direct, intentional injuries.  This context suggests we should 
likewise limit “otherwise injure[],” as the final proscribed act to 
direct injuries, not any harm whatsoever.  (Code Civ. Proc., 
§ 733; see Prunty, supra, 62 Cal.4th at p. 73 [under the noscitur 
a sociis canon, a word “ ‘is known by its associates’ ”].)  
Consequential fire damage would therefore be excluded from the 
ambit of Code of Civil Procedure section 733.  Jongeward, supra, 
278 P.3d 157, concluded the same when it construed a 
Washington statute substantially similar to Code of Civil 
Procedure section 733:  “The statutory phrase ‘otherwise injure’ 
must . . . be read in conjunction with the other verbs—cut down, 
girdle, and carry off.  Because each of these verbs connotes direct 
SCHOLES v. LAMBIRTH TRUCKING COMPANY 
Opinion of the Court by Cuéllar, J. 
 
 
15 
action, this canon suggests that the timber trespass statute does 
not apply when a defendant fails to prevent the spread of a fire.”  
(Jongeward, at p. 164; see also id. at p. 162 [“it seems more likely 
that the legislature used the term “ ‘trespass’ ” to mean direct 
acts causing immediate injuries, not culpable omissions causing 
collateral damage”].)  We conclude the same construction 
applies to injuries in section 3346 and does not reach accidental 
fire damage.  Instead, reading these two statutes together 
evinces the Legislature’s purpose of curtailing timber 
misappropriation and awarding damages based on the 
reasonableness, good faith, or lack thereof, of the defendant’s 
incursion. 
The Kelly court found this conclusion unduly speculative.  
(Kelly, supra, 179 Cal.App.4th at p. 462.)  Obviously, we 
disagree.  The historical context in which the Legislature 
enacted 
section 
3346 
further 
convinces 
us 
that 
our 
interpretation today is the correct one.  California’s timber 
trespass law traces back to early colonial enactments forbidding 
the cutting of timber from public grounds.  (See generally 
Kinney, supra, ch. VIII; id. at p. 66; cf., e.g., Cotton v. United 
States (1850) 52 U.S. 229 [action of trespass quare clausum 
fregit against defendant who had cut and removed timber trees 
from public land].)  These laws were “soon followed by laws 
imposing liability for single or multiple damages or penalties for 
the cutting of timber from private lands without the consent of 
the owner.”  (Kinney, supra, at p. 96.)  In “nearly every colony 
the civil liabilities imposed by the earlier acts proved 
insufficient to prevent trespass and later laws increased the 
exemplary damages or provided for imprisonment.”  (Ibid.)  
Then, after the founding of the United States, “new timber 
SCHOLES v. LAMBIRTH TRUCKING COMPANY 
Opinion of the Court by Cuéllar, J. 
 
 
16 
trespass statutes were enacted in nearly all of the original states 
and as new states or territories were erected laws of this 
character were made effective in each.”  (Id. at pp. 96-97.)  Many 
states, including California, “provide[d] for exemplary damages 
in the form of double or treble damages, or penalties, for the 
unlawful cutting of timber on the land of another or on public 
land.”  (Id. at p. 97 & fn. 1.)  Forcing tortfeasors to pay the value 
of the timber was insufficient to deter willful misappropriation 
and would simply encourage a “do first, ask for forgiveness later” 
approach — if discovered, the logger simply paid for what he 
received.  (See Drewry, supra, 236 Cal.App.2d at p. 176 [for torts 
like conversion and timber misappropriation, “ ‘compensatory 
damages will at most restore the wrongdoer to the status quo 
ante and may even leave him with a profit’ ”; Note, DAMAGES: 
Statutory Double Damages Awarded for Casual or Involuntary 
Timber Trespass  — Drewry v. Welch (Cal. 1965) (1966) 54 Cal. 
L.Rev. 1843, 1846 (Note).)  As the Gould court observed, 
damages multipliers in timber trespass laws “are an expression 
of the policy of increasing the risks of timber appropriation to 
the point of making it unprofitable.”  (Gould, supra, 5 
Cal.App.3d at p. 408.) 
Section 3346 and Code of Civil Procedure section 733 fit 
this general trend.   Both derive from New York’s timber 
trespass statutes and use language either substantially similar, 
or identical, to those laws.3  As originally passed, the statutes 
                                        
3  
See, e.g., Fulle, supra, 7 Cal.App.5th at p. 1310, fn. 2; 
Kelly, supra, 179 Cal.App.4th at p. 463, fn. 5; Proposed Revised 
Laws (1871) § 3347 [later adopted as Civ. Code § 3346]; 
Commissioners of the Code, The Civil Code of the State of New 
York, Report Complete (1865), § 1871, p. 579; 2 N.Y. Rev. Stat. 
SCHOLES v. LAMBIRTH TRUCKING COMPANY 
Opinion of the Court by Cuéllar, J. 
 
 
17 
provided treble damages for injuries to trees but only actual 
damages for accidental trespassers or those trespassing under 
authority to rebuild public highways.  We find nothing in the 
California Code Commissioners’ note accompanying the 1872 
adoption of the Civil Code suggesting that the Legislature 
“intend[ed] to accomplish [a] marked” expansion of the New 
York laws, let alone that it “chose[] to do so in language which 
differed only slightly,” or not at all, from those laws.  (Li v. 
Yellow Cab Co. (1975) 13 Cal.3d 804, 819 (Li).)  We also observe 
that in illustrating the purpose of the new section 3346, the 
Commissioners’ note cited only cases fitting the traditional 
timber trespass model.  (See Code commrs. note foll. 2 Ann. Civ. 
Code § 3346 (1st ed. 1872, Haymond & Burch, commrs-
annotators) p. 412 [cases concerning “damages for cutting down 
growing trees” and “entry to cut and to sell the trees”]; cf. Li, 
supra, at p. 819 [“It would be even more surprising if the Code 
Commissioners, in stating the substance of the intended change, 
should fail to mention the law of any jurisdiction, American or 
foreign, which then espoused the new doctrine in any form, and 
should choose to cite in their note the very statutes and decisions 
which the New York Code Commissioners had cited in support 
of their statement of the common law rule”].)  So the 
Commissioners’ note tends to confirm that the new section 3346 
broke no new ground.  (See People v. Chun (2009) 45 Cal.4th 
1172, 1187 [Commissioners’ notes are “entitled to substantial 
weight”].) 
                                        
(1829) 338, §§ 1-3; see also Kinney, supra, at p. 104, fn. 1 [citing 
Nixon v. Stillwell (1889) 5 N.Y.S. 248 as example of statutory 
action for timber trespass]; ibid. [claim for treble damages under 
New York Code Civ. Proc. former §§ 1667 & 1668]. 
SCHOLES v. LAMBIRTH TRUCKING COMPANY 
Opinion of the Court by Cuéllar, J. 
 
 
18 
The same category of harm, we conclude, is targeted by 
both section 3346 and Code of Civil Procedure section 733: 
timber trespass.  To conclude that section 3346 reaches removal 
of trees and a broad range of “wrongful injuries” (id., subd. (a)) 
to trees while Code of Civil Procedure section 773 reaches only 
conventional timber trespass is implausible.  Given their similar 
content, simultaneous codification, and shared roots in the New 
York statutes, it’s at a minimum implausible that the legislative 
purpose was to create separate enhanced damages provisions for 
significantly overlapping but nonidentical harms.  
We therefore agree with several Courts of Appeal that the 
purpose of section 3346, like other timber trespass statutes, is 
“ ‘ “to educate blunderers (persons who mistake location of 
boundary lines) and to discourage rogues (persons who ignore 
boundary lines), to protect timber from being cut by others than 
the owner.” ’ ”  (Fulle, supra, 7 Cal.App.5th 1305, 1315; Hassoldt 
v. Patrick Media Group, Inc. (2000) 84 Cal.App.4th 153, 169 
(Hassoldt); Baker v. Ramirez (1987) 190 Cal.App.3d 1123, 1138-
1139; Gould, supra, 5 Cal.App.3d at p. 408; Drewry, supra, 236 
Cal.App.2d at p. 177.)  Section 3346 addresses situations where 
a person intentionally enters the land in question, either 
personally or through some agent or instrumentality, to cause 
direct, intentional injury to timber, trees, or underwood.  It then 
varies damages depending on the culpability of the defendant’s 
entry.  Subjecting defendants like Lambirth to enhanced 
damages under section 3346 would not further such a statute’s 
purposes. 
Scholes argues that whatever the original scope of section 
3346, the Legislature’s 1957 repeal and reenactment of the 
statute (Stats. 1957, ch. 2346, § 2, p. 4076) expanded its 
SCHOLES v. LAMBIRTH TRUCKING COMPANY 
Opinion of the Court by Cuéllar, J. 
 
 
19 
meaning.  We are not persuaded.  In advancing this argument, 
Scholes relies on the principle that we presume the Legislature’s 
awareness of judicial decisions interpreting words it employs in 
a statute.  (Cruz, supra, 13 Cal.4th at p. 775.)  By using the word 
“trespass” when it repealed and reenacted Civil Code section 
3346 in 1957, he contends, the Legislature was incorporating 
into the statute a common law concept that would have 
encompassed invasions of property, which were then understood 
as trespasses.  (See Coley, supra, 206 Cal. at p. 28.)  Lambirth’s 
negligently escaping fire would constitute such a trespass.  (See 
Elton, supra, 50 Cal.App.4th at p. 1307 [“When negligently 
inflicted with resulting actual damage, [an invasion by fire] may 
constitute a trespass”].)    
Scholes is right that statutes often codify or otherwise 
incorporate common law doctrines.  (See, e.g., Stokeling v. 
United States (2019) ___ U.S. ___, ___ [139 S.Ct. 544, 551] 
[“ ‘ “[I]f a word is obviously transplanted from another legal 
source, whether the common law or other legislation, it brings 
the old soil with it” ’ ”]; Metropolitan Water Dist. v. Superior 
Court (2004) 32 Cal.4th 491, 500 [“In this circumstance — a 
statute referring to employees without defining the term — 
courts have generally applied the common law test of 
employment”]; People v. Tufunga (1999) 21 Cal.4th 935, 946 
[“[B]y adopting the identical phrase ‘felonious taking’ as used in 
the common law with regard to both [the larceny and robbery 
statutes of 1850], the Legislature in all likelihood intended to 
incorporate the same meanings attached to those phrases at 
common law”].)  Scholes is also correct that statutory terms can 
be capacious enough to encompass evolving meanings, including 
for terms of art found in the common law.  (See Business 
SCHOLES v. LAMBIRTH TRUCKING COMPANY 
Opinion of the Court by Cuéllar, J. 
 
 
20 
Electronics Corp. v Sharp Electronics Corp. (1988) 485 US 717, 
732 [“The Sherman Act adopted the term ‘restraint of trade’ 
along with its dynamic potential.  It invokes the common law 
itself, and not merely the static content that the common law 
had assigned to the term in 1890”); Leegin Creative Leather 
Products, Inc v PSKS, Inc (2007) 551 US 877, 888 [quoting and 
reaffirming this passage from Business Electronics].)  These 
observations 
nonetheless 
fail 
to 
advance 
Scholes’s 
interpretation of section 3346, because we have strong reasons 
to doubt that the trespass mentioned in the statute is the plain 
vanilla common law kind, rather than the narrower, more 
specialized concept of timber trespass.  The statute’s language, 
its relationship to Code of Civil Procedure section 733, and 
historical context tend to confirm the common law’s divergence 
from Code of Civil Procedure section 733 and Civil Code section 
3346, in at least one respect.  (Ante, at p. 14.)  Because the 
“trespass” term used in section 3346 is a term of art separate 
from the evolving common law concept that shares the name, 
the scope of section 3346 does not spread to cover the terrain 
that common law trespass does.   
Nor does the 1957 repeal and reenactment change this 
picture.  We can glean nothing from the circumstances 
surrounding that repeal and reenactment to support the 
conclusion that the Legislature struck the more particularized 
meaning of trespass and replaced it with the common law 
meaning when it reenacted the new section 3346.  Here’s what 
the 1872 version of section 3346 stated:  “For wrongful injuries 
to timber, trees, or underwood upon the land of another, or 
removal thereof, the measure of damages is three times such a 
sum as would compensate for the actual detriment, except 
SCHOLES v. LAMBIRTH TRUCKING COMPANY 
Opinion of the Court by Cuéllar, J. 
 
 
21 
where the trespass was casual and involuntary, or committed 
under the belief that the land belonged to the trespasser, or 
where the wood was taken by the authority of highway officers 
for the purposes of a highway; in which cases the damages are a 
sum equal to the actual detriment.”  (Civ. Code, former § 3346.)  
The current version of section 3346, subdivision (a), in which the 
first 43 words remain almost identical to the original enactment, 
now mandates that the “measure of damages shall be twice the 
sum as would compensate for the actual detriment” for “casual 
or involuntary” trespasses or where the defendant “had probable 
cause to believe that the land on which the trespass was 
committed was his own.”  The reenactment also added 
subdivision (b), assessing only actual damages for defendants 
whose belief that the land was theirs arose from a property line 
survey, and subdivision (c), specifying a five-year statute of 
limitations. 
None of these changes altered anything about the scope of 
trespass as used in section 3346 or suggested a switch from its 
particularized meaning to the common law meaning.  Instead, 
the changes recalibrated the damages assessed for those 
trespasses, authorizing new double damages for even 
unintentional breaches unless the defendant demonstrated 
reasonable care by procuring a land survey.  So it seems most 
plausible the Legislature’s primary purpose in 1957 tracked 
much the same concern that motivated the enactment of the 
timber trespass law in the first place:  to deter the wrongful 
breach of property lines for the sake of cutting or other direct 
forms of injury to another’s trees, and to encourage property 
owners to take appropriate steps to determine where the lines 
fall.  Also left unchanged was Code of Civil Procedure section 
SCHOLES v. LAMBIRTH TRUCKING COMPANY 
Opinion of the Court by Cuéllar, J. 
 
 
22 
733, the provision for which section 3346 provides the measure 
of damages.  (Ante, at p. 14.)  This level of continuity strains the 
case that the 1957 reenactment adopted the more expansive 
common law meaning of trespass.   
What’s more, double damages for mistaken trespasses 
stand out, as the Legislature typically reserves enhanced 
damages for deterring willful conduct.  They are the exception 
and not the rule for accidental harms.  (See Drewry, supra, 236 
Cal.App.2d at pp. 176-177; § 3294.)  The need for such an 
exception is more apparent for intentionally felled trees than for 
accidentally destroyed ones.  Actual damages could leave 
defendants who cut down trees with a profit.  (See Drewry, 
supra, at p. 176; Note, supra, 54 Cal. L.Rev. at p. 1846.)  
Knowing this, the Legislature might reasonably find it 
necessary to penalize even accidental trespassers, while 
creating a safe harbor for those who procure land surveys, to 
promote the proper level of care.  (See Green v. Southern Timber 
Co. (S.D. Ga. 1923) 291 F. 582, 584 [“Reckoning the damage on 
the basis of stumpage would be to disregard the unwillingness 
of the owner to sell.  The defendant was a trespasser, even 
though unwittingly. Surely he should be content to forego any 
profit”].)  In contrast, it’s difficult to see what benefit someone 
gleans from accidentally burning someone else’s woods, and so 
the punitive and deterrent aspects of the statute seem to have 
minimal application in that scenario.  In modern cases adopting 
the “timber trespass” concept, courts recognize these punitive 
and deterrent aspects by emphasizing a wrongdoer’s potential 
profit from the cutting or removal of another’s trees.  (See Fulle, 
supra, 7 Cal.App.5th at p. 1309 [defendant cut his neighbor’s 
trees to improve his view and raise his home value]; Hassoldt, 
SCHOLES v. LAMBIRTH TRUCKING COMPANY 
Opinion of the Court by Cuéllar, J. 
 
 
23 
supra, 84 Cal.App.4th at pp. 157, 169 [defendant cut his 
neighbor’s trees to expose his billboard].)  But defendant does 
not appear to profit by negligently allowing a fire to escape the 
property.  To the extent a potential defendant might be tempted 
to dispense with the cost of certain fire prevention measures 
because no liability for negligent fire-spreading might arise 
under section 3346, liability would still exist under other 
statutes and at common law –– and defendants would still run 
the risk of damage to their own timber.  (See, e.g., People v. 
Southern Pacific Co. (1983) 139 Cal.App.3d 627, 633 [noting that 
Health & Saf. Code §§ 13007 and 13008 codify the basis of fire 
liability]; Elton, supra, 50 Cal.App.4th at p. 1307 [“When 
negligently inflicted with resulting actual damage, [an invasion 
by fire] may constitute a trespass”].)  So it’s not clear section 
3346 would serve its deterrent purpose.  Furthermore, an 
extended statute of limitations — the second major change from 
the 1957 repeal and reenactment — makes sense for intentional 
removal of trees that a landowner may not discover until much 
later.  (See Note, supra, at p. 1846 & fn. 16.)   
Legislative history likewise indicates that a desire to 
strengthen the existing law, without expanding its application 
beyond timber misappropriation, motivated the 1957 repeal and 
reenactment.  (See Fulle, supra, 7 Cal.App.5th 1305, 1315, fn. 6 
[“The legislative history of Assembly Bill No. 2526 (1957 Reg. 
Sess.) indicates the double damages provision was added to 
section 3346 in order to more effectively deter timber 
appropriation by those who carelessly or negligently fail to 
accurately determine a boundary line”].)  Constituents and 
federal officials both wrote to the Eureka assembly member who 
introduced the legislation to express their concerns about the 
SCHOLES v. LAMBIRTH TRUCKING COMPANY 
Opinion of the Court by Cuéllar, J. 
 
 
24 
problem.  As one writer from the United States Bureau of Land 
Management lamented, “[T]he Bureau of Land Management 
ha[d] an extremely serious timber trespass situation on forested 
public domain lands in northern California. . . .  With single 
stumpage generally the required payment for timber stolen if 
the culprits are found or unless criminal intent could be proved, 
the former timber legislation was largely an open invitation to 
unscrupulous loggers to help themselves.”  (James F. Doyle, 
Area Administrator, U.S. Dept. of the Interior, Bureau of Land 
Management, letter to Assemblyman Frank P. Belotti, July 26, 
1957.) 
In another letter, a timberland owner named G. Kelton 
Steele described how “[t]he great rise in timber values during 
the past few years,” combined with timber scarcity, had “created 
a temptation to trespass and often to cause the logger to ‘give 
himself the benefit of the doubt,’ as far as the exact location of a 
property line is concerned.”  (G. Kelton Steele, letter to 
Assemblyman Frank P. Belotti, Feb. 12, 1957.) In Steele’s 
experience with such “timber trespass” lawsuits, “it [was] a rare 
thing” to be able to prove such willful trespasses and recover 
treble damages.  (Ibid.)  The Legislature seems to have been 
trying to curb this abuse of the former statute, contemporarily 
understood as a timber trespass statute.  (See also Note, supra, 
64 Cal. L.Rev. at pp. 1846-1847 [“If held liable for trespassing, 
[timber operators] quite frequeutly [sic] escaped with paying 
only stumpage value, which they were willing to pay for the 
trees in the first place.  In addition, the trespass might never be 
discovered at all.  [Fn. omitted.]  Balanced against this 
possibility of paying nothing at all or actual value was the slim 
possibility of having to pay treble damages.  [Fn. omitted.]  To 
SCHOLES v. LAMBIRTH TRUCKING COMPANY 
Opinion of the Court by Cuéllar, J. 
 
 
25 
the extent that the double damage provision of section 3346 
deters timber raids and more adequately compensates the 
victims of timber trespass, it is a valid effort by the legislature 
to cure an inadequacy in the law”].) 
B. 
Further insight into the Legislature’s purpose comes from 
our state’s fire liability statutes, currently codified at Health 
and Safety Code section 13007 et seq.  Section 13007 states that 
a person who “wilfully, negligently, or in violation of law, sets 
fire to, allows fire to be set to, or allows a fire kindled or attended 
by him to escape to, the property of another . . . is liable to the 
owner of such property for any damages to the property caused 
by the fire.”  (Health & Saf. Code, § 13007.)  Similarly, Health 
and Safety Code section 13008 states that “[a]ny person who 
allows any fire burning upon his property to escape to the 
property of another . . . without exercising due diligence to 
control such fire, is liable to the owner of such property for the 
damages to the property caused by the fire.”  Section 13009 
requires the liable party to pay associated costs for fire 
suppression and rescue or emergency medical services.  (Id., 
§ 13009.) 
We must reconcile our interpretation of section 3346 with 
these statutes, too –– as they all function together within the 
same broader statutory scheme.  (See, e.g., Pesce v. Department 
of Alcoholic Beverage Control (1958) 51 Cal.2d 310, 312.)  
Scholes, like the Kelly court, sees his interpretation of section 
3346 as “easily harmonized” with these statutes:  “Under 
[Health and Safety Code] section 13007, a tortfeasor generally 
is liable to the owner of property for damage caused by a 
negligently set fire. . . .  If the fire also damages trees . . . then 
SCHOLES v. LAMBIRTH TRUCKING COMPANY 
Opinion of the Court by Cuéllar, J. 
 
 
26 
the actual damages recoverable under [Health and Safety Code] 
section 13007 may be doubled (for negligently caused fires) or 
trebled (for fires intended to spread to the plaintiff's 
property) . . . .”  (Kelly, supra, 179 Cal.App.4th at p. 461.)  
Lambirth takes the view of Gould, contending that to give full 
effect to the Legislature’s aims in enacting the Health and 
Safety statutes, we must conclude that “the Legislature has set 
up a statutory scheme concerning timber fires completely 
separate from the scheme to meet the situation of the cutting or 
other type of injury to timber.”  (Gould, supra, 5 Cal.App.3d at 
p. 407.) 
The parallel histories of section 3346 and the fire statutes 
tend to reinforce that the Legislature did not include negligently 
spread fires within the ambit of section 3346.  In the same year 
that it enacted section 3346, the Legislature also enacted the 
predecessor to the fire liability statutes, imposing treble 
damages for damage from fire that accidentally spreads to 
adjoining property.  Former Political Code section 3344 stated:  
“Every person negligently setting fire to his own woods, or 
negligently suffering any fire to extend beyond his own land, is 
liable in treble damages to the party injured.”  In 1905, the 
Legislature moved the substance of this provision into the Civil 
Code as former section 3346a.  (Civ. Code, former § 3346a; 
Assem. J. (1905 Reg. Sess.) p. 688.)  While this law by its terms 
provided recovery for all damaged property and not just timber, 
the historical context indicates that protecting forests and 
timber would have been of principal concern.  In Garnier v. 
Porter (1891) 90 Cal. 105 (Garnier), we recognized that “[w]hen 
[former Political Code section 3344] was first enacted, the lands 
of this state were generally uninclosed [sic], and unoccupied, 
SCHOLES v. LAMBIRTH TRUCKING COMPANY 
Opinion of the Court by Cuéllar, J. 
 
 
27 
save for grazing purposes.  Frequent fires spread over the 
country, destroying timber, grass, and other property. . . .  
Unquestionably, the law was designed to prevent such 
calamities as far as possible.”  (Id. at p. 108.)  Having authorized 
treble damages under former Political Code section 3344 for 
harm to timber from negligently spread fires, it is unclear why 
the Legislature would have simultaneously created a duplicate 
remedy under section 3346.  
Nor do we see any evidence of such a historical 
understanding.  In the years after 1872, both this court and 
litigants viewed only former Political Code section 3344 and its 
successor, Civil Code former section 3346a, as the proper cause 
of action for treble damages for negligently caused fire damage.  
(See Garnier, supra, 90 Cal. at pp. 106-107; Galvin v. Gualala 
Mill Co. (1893) 98 Cal. 268, 270; Kennedy v. Minarets & W. Ry. 
Co. (1928) 90 Cal.App. 563, 579, 581.)  Scholes identifies, and we 
have found, no California cases before Kelly treating the 
destruction of trees by the spread of fire as a form of timber 
trespass under section 3346 and Code of Civil Procedure section 
733, even after our courts had eliminated the distinction 
between direct and indirect trespasses.  Instead, reported cases 
of actions under section 3346 involved only the intentional tree 
removal.  (See, e.g., Drewry, supra, 236 Cal.App.2d at p. 164; 
Caldwell v. Walker (1963) 211 Cal.App.2d 758, 761-762; Fick v. 
Nilson (1950) 98 Cal.App.2d 683, 684; Swall, supra, 60 
Cal.App.2d at p. 827; Stewart, supra, 108 Cal. at p. 207.)  We 
believe the historical uses of these causes of action, while by no 
means dispositive or preeminent in our analysis, reinforce our 
conclusion about the legislative purpose that the preceding 
statutory analysis already favors. 
SCHOLES v. LAMBIRTH TRUCKING COMPANY 
Opinion of the Court by Cuéllar, J. 
 
 
28 
Importantly, reading section 3346 to exclude damage from 
negligently escaping fires avoids undermining the Legislature’s 
purpose in subsequently repealing former Political Code section 
3344 and Civil Code former section 3346a.  In 1931, the 
Legislature removed former section 3346a from the penal 
statutes of the Civil Code and enacted what would later become 
the Health and Safety Code provisions.  (Stats. 1931, ch. 790, 
§§ 1-6, p. 1644; see also Stats. 1953, ch. 48, §§ 1-3, p. 682; 
Department of Forestry & Fire Protection v. Howell (2017) 18 
Cal.App.5th 154, 177 [summarizing legislative history].)  The 
new provisions expanded the former provisions’ coverage to both 
willful and negligently caused fire damage.  But this statutory 
shakeup also shifted away from a system that awarded punitive, 
enhanced damages solely to the owner of affected property 
towards a system that compensated all affected parties, 
including the public agencies who respond to the emergency, for 
their actual damages.  The new system recognized that the costs 
of uncontrolled fires in our state extend beyond property owners 
and ensured that negligent defendants’ resources go first and 
foremost to compensatory ends. 
In short, we tend to think the Legislature signaled in 1931 
its conclusion that enhanced damages were no longer 
appropriate, as a matter of course, for negligently spread fires.  
(County of Los Angeles v. State of California (1987) 43 Cal.3d 46, 
55 [“ ‘[I]t is ordinarily to be presumed that the Legislature by 
deleting an express provision of a statute intended a substantial 
change in the law’ ”].)  Under Scholes’s interpretation, the 
Legislature would have eliminated treble damages more 
generally to ease the strain borne by the public fisc from fire 
control, while implicitly preserving treble damages, and later 
SCHOLES v. LAMBIRTH TRUCKING COMPANY 
Opinion of the Court by Cuéllar, J. 
 
 
29 
adding double damages in the case of unintended trespasses, 
just for fire damage to trees under section 3346.   
Scholes fails to persuade us that the Legislature 
understood itself to exempt timber, trees, and underwood from 
an otherwise comprehensive scheme.  California’s trees number 
in the millions; injuries to them could produce enormous 
liability with the imposition of separate penal damages on top of 
any otherwise existing potential legal exposure from fire 
escaping to surrounding properties.  Courts have held 
defendants liable for the fair market value of destroyed timber, 
the cost of reforestation (see People v. Southern Pacific Co. 
(1983) 139 Cal.App.3d 627, 635), lost profits from any business 
connected to the damaged property (see McKay v. State of 
California (1992) 8 Cal.App.4th 937, 938), and nonpecuniary 
damages for loss of use and enjoyment, annoyance and 
discomfort, and emotional distress (see Hensley v. San Diego 
Gas & Electric Co. (2017) 7 Cal.App.5th 1337, 1351-1352).  This 
robust and comprehensive fire liability scheme strongly 
suggests that, contrary to Scholes’s assertion, the Legislature 
provided for compensation in the event fire spread negligently 
instead of leaving a gap implying a need for section 3346 to play 
that role. 
And notice what a peculiar scheme would result if both 
section 3346 and Health and Safety Code section 13007 covered 
negligent fire-spreading.  Trees and timber would be 
compensated at $2 or $3 for every dollar of damages, but damage 
to people would be compensated at a ratio of $1 of compensation 
for every dollar of damage.   
That fire liability is an enormously consequential and 
complicated issue for Californians is beyond question.  The 
SCHOLES v. LAMBIRTH TRUCKING COMPANY 
Opinion of the Court by Cuéllar, J. 
 
 
30 
relative bustle of legislative action in this domain showcases an 
evolving story of balancing competing considerations — which 
includes creating the right incentives for large entities and 
individuals while recognizing the possibility of limits on 
available resources for compensation.  We decline to read 
anything in section 3346 as disrupting the balance evidently 
struck when the Legislature replaced treble damages for 
negligently escaping fires with fire suppression liability.  The 
Legislature can further calibrate this framework if it decides 
that negligently-caused tree damage deserves even more 
protection than what other causes of action already provide. 
III. 
California protects the public from negligently spread fire, 
but not through the provisions on damage to trees or timber in 
section 3346.  The section’s language, structure, and statutory 
and historical context support a reasonable inference that the 
legislative purpose of this provision was to implement and 
maintain the kind of timber trespass law commonly used in 
different states to deter misappropriation of these natural 
resources.  The law discourages “ ‘rogues’ ” and educates “ 
‘blunderers’ ” (Drewry, supra, 236 Cal.App.2d at p. 177) who 
intrude on others’ land to cause direct, intentional injuries to 
timber, trees, and underwood.  What this interpretation still 
allows is for plaintiffs like Scholes to pursue and recover full 
compensation for their losses under other applicable remedies.  
We do not address whether, under section 3294, 
exemplary damages beyond actual losses apply to cases where a 
person “wilfully” commits the acts prohibited by Health and 
Safety Code section 13007.  (See § 3294, subd. (a) [authorizing 
damages for “malic[ious acts] . . . for the sake of example and by 
SCHOLES v. LAMBIRTH TRUCKING COMPANY 
Opinion of the Court by Cuéllar, J. 
 
 
31 
way of punishing the defendant”].)  Nor do we address whether 
treble damages under section 3346 apply to cases of direct, 
intentional injuries to trees through fire.  We simply hold that 
section 3346 does not provide enhanced damages or a longer 
statute of limitations for injuries to timber, trees, or underwood 
from negligently spread fires.  To the extent the holding in Kelly 
v. CB&I Constructors, Inc., supra, 179 Cal.App.4th 442 is 
inconsistent with this opinion, we disapprove of it. 
We therefore affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeal. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
CUÉLLAR, J.  
 
We Concur: 
CANTIL-SAKAUYE, C. J. 
LIU, J. 
KRUGER, J. 
GROBAN, J. 
ARONSON, J. 
BANKE, J. 
                                        
 Associate Justice of the Court of Appeal, Fourth Appellate 
District, Division Three, assigned by the Chief Justice pursuant 
to article VI, section 6 of the California Constitution. 
 Associate Justice of the Court of Appeal, First Appellate 
District, Division One, assigned by the Chief Justice pursuant 
to article VI, section 6 of the California Constitution. 
 
 
See next page for addresses and telephone numbers for counsel who argued in Supreme Court. 
 
Name of Opinion Scholes v. Lambirth Trucking Co. 
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Unpublished Opinion 
Original Appeal 
Original Proceeding  
Review Granted XXX 10 Cal.App.5th 590 
Rehearing Granted 
 
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Opinion No. S241825 
Date Filed:  February 20, 2020 
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Court:  Superior 
County:  Colusa 
Judge:  Jeffrey A. Thompson 
 
__________________________________________________________________________________ 
 
Counsel: 
 
Vincent E. Scholes, in pro. per.; Singleton Law Firm, Gerald Singleton; Law Offices of Martin N. Buchanan and 
Martin N. Buchanan for Plaintiff and Appellant.   
 
The Arkin Law Firm and Sharon J. Arkin for Consumer Attorneys of California as Amicus Curiae on behalf of 
Plaintiff and Appellant. 
 
Anwyl, Scoffield & Stepp, James T. Anwyl; Spinelli, Donald & Nott and Lynn A. Garcia for Defendant and 
Respondent. 
 
Horvitz & Levy, Robert H. Wright and Jeremy B. Rosen for Pacific Gas and Electric Company as Amicus Curiae on 
behalf of Defendant and Respondent.   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Counsel who argued in Supreme Court (not intended for publication with opinion): 
 
Martin N. Buchanan 
Law Offices of Martin N. Buchanan 
655 West Broadway, Suite 1700 
San Diego, CA 92101 
(619) 238-2426 
 
Lynn A. Garcia 
Spinelli, Donald & Nott 
601 University Ave., Suite 225 
Sacramento, CA 95825 
(916) 448-7888