Opinion ID: 2330436
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Broader statutes

Text: ¶ 36 Courts interpreting broader statutes have held that a plaintiff may recover damages when a defendant destroys the plaintiff's trees by fire. For example, in Kelly v. CB & I Constructors, Inc., 179 Cal.App.4th 442, 102 Cal.Rptr.3d 32 (2009), the California Court of Appeals held that fire damage constitutes injury to trees. In Worman v. Columbia County, 223 Or.App. 223, 195 P.3d 414 (2008), the Court of Appeals of Oregon recognized that the spraying of herbicides on trees and shrubs is a `deliberate trespass such as involved in cutting standing timber.' Id. at 238, 195 P.3d 414 (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Meyer v. Harvey Aluminum, 263 Or. 487, 497, 501 P.2d 795 (1972)). And in Mock v. Potlatch Corp., 786 F.Supp. 1545, 1549 (D.Idaho 1992) (quoting Idaho Code § 6-202-A (1990)), the United States District Court held that the Idaho timber trespass statute defines entry to include `going upon or over real property, either in person, or by causing any object, substance or force to go upon real property.' ¶ 37 But the statutes construed in these cases are substantially different from the language of former RCW 64.12.030. California's statute provides a broad remedy [f]or wrongful injuries to timber, trees, or underwood upon the land of another, or removal thereof. Cal. Civ.Code § 3346(a). Oregon's statute contains a separate clause imposing liability for willfully injuring trees. Or.Rev. Stat. Ann. 105.810(1). And Idaho's statute expressly requires entry and includes a legislative definition of the word enter. See Idaho Code Ann. § 6-202A. Because we need not adopt the construction placed on a similar statute in another state if the language of the statute ... is substantially different from the language of our own, we do not adopt the construction of these statutes. Everett Concrete Prods., Inc. v. Dep't of Labor & Indus., 109 Wash.2d 819, 826, 748 P.2d 1112 (1988).