Court Opinion

ID: 9616097
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:43:31.501999+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:03:55.017224
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Frantz
dissenting:
Because the majority sanctioned conduct on the part of Keck which constituted a trespass and the destruction *341of co-owned property without the imposition of damages, I cannot agree with their opinion.
Under the early English common law, a tree which stood on a property line made the adjoining owners tenants in common of that tree, and if one of the co-owners cut the whole he was liable for damages to the other. Waterman v. Soper, 1 Ld. Raym. 737. This case was followed in the early American case of Griffin v. Bixby, 12 N.H. 454.
Since that time a body of law has developed which holds that each of the owners of land upon whose property the trunk of a tree stands “has an interest in that tree, a property in it, equal, in the first instance, to, or perhaps, rather identical with, the part which is upon his land; and in the next place, embracing the right to demand that the owner of the other portion shall so use his part as not unreasonably to injure or destroy the whole.” Robinson v. Clapp, 65 Conn. 365, 32 Atl. 942. In accord are Scarborough v. Woodill, 7 Cal. App. 39, 93 Pac. 383; Quillen v. Betts, 17 Del. 53, 39 Atl. 595; Musch v. Burkhart, 83 Iowa 301, 48 N.W. 1025.
If a tenant in common injures or destroys a tree standing on a boundary line, his adjoining landowner may maintain an action of trespass against the one who has injured or destroyed the tree. Doran v. Rugg, 22 Conn. Sup. 189, 164 A.2d 859; Luke v. Scott, 187 N.E. 63 (Ind. App.); Blalock v. Atwood, 154 Ky. 394, 157 S W. 694; Griffin v. Bixby, supra.
The cited law applies to one tree on a boundary or to a clump of trees some of which are on the boundary. Meixner v. Buecksler, 216 Minn. 586, 13 N.W.2d 754.
To come within these rules a tree need not have been placed on the property line for the purpose of forming a border or boundary. A tree which stands on a property line in a state of nature or one which has been planted by man is treated in the same way. This is the purport of the cited cases.
Mr. Justice McWilliams joins in this dissent.