If a tree falls on a house, is the city responsible?

The insurance company in a city contract in Massachusetts, responsible for $ 40,000, succeeded in compensation resulting from a tree that fell from the city’s property to the believer’s house.

Citation Insurance Co. Requesting the owners of the house for compensation and then requested compensation by alleviating the city of Chicopee. After Chicopee refused to pay the claim that he was immune to responsibility, the insurance company filed a lawsuit against neglect in the maintenance of the tree. The court of trial stood by the insurance company and now it has the state’s appeal court.

The tree fell on the house during a wind storm in February 2019. The owner of the house sent a message to the mayor of Chicopee, and the city informed that the tree fell on its property, causing damage, and stated that “the damage could have been prevented by practicing reasonable care if the city acted hard to treat it or caution against this case other than Ah.”

The court noted that the former owner of the house had informed the city in 2013 that the tree was in bad condition and pose a danger to the house.

The city confirmed that its decision is whether to remove the tree is an estimated function, and therefore it was immune to the lawsuit under an exception in the law of the state. The city was martyred by a virtue of the law of damage to the Massachusetts state of municipalities that exempt the responsibility, “that is, a claim based on exercise, performance, failure to practice or perform an estimated function.”

The city also cited the city decree stipulating that “the discretionary authority and the proper judgment of the tree men alone determines whether the tree should be removed.”

But the Court of Appeal found that whether the job is an exception to the estimated act is a legal issue that revolves around whether the public law in debate involves “making policy or planning” and it is not determined whether the public body itself chooses to determine its actions as “discretionary.”

Quoting the previous cases involved in the exception of the estimated job, the Court of Appeal agreed with the lower court and the insurance company that the exclusion does not apply to the Chicopee claim. The court found that the decision to remove the tree, which could be a possible dangerous in the case, did not include “policy or planning”, as these conditions are used in the jurisdiction. The decisions contained in the position of the tree that were on it and the creation of the tree in organizing trees may be considered “policy or planning” because they include allocating government resources and setting government responsibility. The Court of Appeal stated: “The imposition of responsibility based on these decisions may include” the rape of the authority and responsibility of the legislative or executive branch of the government, “the Court of Appeal said.

However, this was not the case with the tree. “Here the city owns the tree, and the tree threatened the property of the neighbors. The city has created a tree guard to preserve its trees. The neglect law sets a basic duty to practice reasonable care to avoid harming others’ property,” the three judge committee concluded.