Three Law

NO!  That Is Not A Typo!

Dog Buns, have you not been reading this scrivel for long enough to comprehend that the English language does exactly what Conrad wants it to do?  

     Okay, for starters, we are getting to the end.  Of 'Legal Eagle's triumvirate of torrid tree tales, in case you were wondering.  I shall leave out Devin Stone's legal analysis of the DeFranco 'Treegate' case, as it does delve deeply into Georgia statutes and the difference 'twixt trespass and conversion.  Art!

     Er - not exactly that Devin had in mind, but we'll let it stand.  

     So!  I have done a bit of digging into the background of the third case that Devin addressed, and discovered that it originates from Fort Collins, Colorado.  A friend of the tree owner affected began posting on Reddit, and things legal snowballed from there.  They posted photographs of what the tree looked like originally, Before Chainsaw - Art!

     A 40-year old Japanese Maple.  The Neighbour, Unjustly Trimmed, hereafter NUT, came home from a week away to find that Neighbour Of Termagantism, hereafter NOT, had hired people to have at the tree, the Disaster After.  Art!

     Ooops.  That's going to smart.  NOT argued that they'd done the trimming as a 'fire mitigation' effort, and that lopping off the other trunk also improved their view of the mountains - Colorado being known for mountains, despite not being called 'Montana' - Art!

     and that these two wafer-thin excuses permitted him, and the company he hired, to trespass on NUT's property.  

     BUT, as Devin pointed out, there were no Fire District orders in issue in that area, meaning that NOT had no reason to carry out any 'fire mitigation' work.  Nor were there any easements in place to allow NOT access to NUT's property.  Ooops.

     

Dev in office

     Here Dev comes out with the explanation of 'Conversion' in South Canadian law.  It is "Conversion in United States law is an intentional civil tort that happens when someone wrongfully takes, uses, or keeps another person's personal property, completely depriving the true owner of its use".  Art!

     Here's the evidence of both trespass and conversion, as all the lumber had vanished by the time NUT got back home.  You're talking about at least $10 per board foot, for those interested in the technical details.

     NUT was - you may be ahead of me here - not happy, and so contacted an arborist in the first instance, whom came out and assessed the tree value as at least $20,000, possibly $25,000 since the tree was both mature and healthy.  NOT had offered $200 'for the inconvenience' which NUT had been careful to not accept (possibly with a few insults thrown in?).  

     Devin then poured a bucket of cold water over those spectators who were chorusing TREE LAW! TREE LAW! because Colorado, unlike other South Canadian states, does not have a x3 multiplier for damages awarded in tree cases <sad face>.  However - ah, that word again! - there is still the issue of trespass.  Once again, NUT is liable to be charged with trespassing, even if they didn't cross their neighbour's boundary, IF they instructed the timber-fellers to move around on NUT's property without permission.  

     Nota Bene: the cutting occurred in February of this year, according to local news media, so don't expect this to go anywhere until next year, even if the courts work at breakneck speed.

     This reminded me of a previous case we've covered on BOOJUM! about horrendous entitled neighbours committing trespass in order to hack about the OP's black walnut trees and honey locust bushes, which had formed a privacy screen - shades of the DeFranco 'Treegate' case on a smaller scale, hmmm?  Art!

      If Blogger is working properly, that ought to be a Honey Locust Tree before your very eyes.  The 'Black Walnut' species also ought to get your TREE LAW adrenaline running, as these trees are incredibly valuable.  Art!

It cost her $15,000 just to touch it

     To act as editor, the previous story from 2024 ended with the awful neighbours being liable for $158,000 in damages and compensation.  Since they were a pair of retired scapegraces, OP believed that they'd have to sell their house to settle the damages - with no final resolution on Youtube nor Updates in the Comments.  Inspired by the Japanese Maple, Conrad did a bit of digging, to no avail; there just wasn't enough information to discover a final judgement in the suit.  More <sad face>.

     There we go, I think that's enough dendrology for a good while.

Tanks For The Memories

Conrad has vague memories of reading about this tank in 'Born In Battle' probably some forty years ago.  I recall that it was mentioned in connection in fighting with Syrian armour during the Six Day War? it being deployed on the Golan Heights.  If gin and old age can be trusted.  Art!

     

     It looks in pretty good nick for an AFV built during the Second Unpleasantness and used in active service for a good twenty years after.  Sadly Your Humble Scribe cannot quite stretch to £1.5 million even on a good day, so I console myself with thoughts of how expensive the insurance would be, and how low the petrol mileage would be.  Still, <sad face>.

More Classical Shizzle

From that website pimping '20 Classical Works Of Literature You Need To Read At Least Once', and we'll see about that.  One classic that I have not yet read but intend to - in the future very vaguely-defined 'at some point' - is 'Don Quixote', by Cervantes.  Prolly in the public domain after being around for 500 years.

     ANYWAY Art!

     Nope.  Conrad doesn't care how uncultured it makes him seem, nope nope nope.  Does reading Niven and Pournelle's 'Inferno' count?  Art!

Mordor Life Is Rubbish

No!  I keep telling you, that's not a typo.  Yes yes yes, you were thinking of that Blur album, weren't you?  The one from 40 years ago.  Art!

     Nope.  We are referring, once again, to life in Ruffia, which seems to get more miserable by the day, as if that were possible.  Fuel shortages are back with a vengeance again, leading to unseemly brawls as Sergei tries to cut in front of Nikolai, who also cuts - tyres with a knife.  

     ANYWAY AGAIN please consider this illo.  Art!

     To starboard is a long queue of cars waiting to get petrol, and to port is another Wild Berries warehouse doing it's best Mount Doom impersonation, a duumvirate that aptly sums up life in Ruffia.

     It will get worse.  Expect a mass mobilisation in September after the Duma 'elections', where already anything that might challenge Bunker Grandad has been banned.  Like democracy.

Spruce With Bruce

No!  Not the tree, the verb meaning 'to smarten things up', which, coming after an item about Mordorvia, sets a pretttty low bar.  Art!

     Once again, note the 'Title Gap' that Ol' Brucie has left in order for the publisher's title to fit in without obscuring his artwork.  Conrad is pretty sure this is for 'The Green Brain' which he read about fifty years ago and cannot remember anything about.  Except for a bit about a person's heart being replaced with insects.  If that's wrong blame old age and rum.  Art!

     Old Dog =  1.  Actually I am now tempted to go read a synopsis of this novel, just to prove that Ol' Frank wasn't merely a one-trick pony as regards 'Dune'.  Art!

     Erk.  I hope he got paid twice.

Finishing With A Little Ungentle Shoeing

O how I will miss the Boorish Orange Oaf Himself when he keels over and faceplants on the tarmac, or slithers bonelessly out of his Oval Office chair whilst the minions think he's only sleeping.  Yeah right.  Art!

 
     If King Piggy gets asked a hard question, or one he doesn't understand, he doesn't ask for clarification or help from an aide, he simply launches into a personal ad hominem attack on the person asking the question; usually a journalist and most often a woman, as he hates hates hates being upstaged by females, which is why Letitia James lives rent-free in his head.  

     He then completely ignores the question, since, as we have observed before, his brain now consists of mashed potato.

And on that terrible insult to mashed potato everywhere, we are done!

It's In The Trees

Indeed It Is

Not the way you were expecting, mind, as that's a quote from the classic horror film 'Night Of The Demon', said during a seance and also sampled for a Kate Bush - how very appropriate! - song if I recall despite old age and gin.  Art!

     Apologies for omitting the exclamation mark but we can't have unseemly levels of emotion here, the blog is British after all.

     ANYWAY I thought I'd begin with a few mythical trees, just to whet your appetite for dendrochronology, which is the study of trees, I think, go look it up if you doubt.  Firstly we introduce the Pink Bunkadoo, and if Art will put down his bowl of anthracite and milk -

     It's distinctive characteristics are that it is 600 PROUD IMPERIAL FEET high, bright pink in colouration and stinks to high heaven.  The latter two facts being why it never caught on with arborists.  Art!

     There's a lot going on here, so let Conrad explicate.  This tree is 'Yggdrasil', from Norse mythology, which forms the foundation for the 'Nine Worlds', clearly long before Pluto was removed from planetary status and moved instead to planetismal, wh

     ANYWAY, Yggdrasil.  Big tree.  Bigger than the Solar System, meaning the Norse might have puzzled where it was in the heavens.   Art!

     In the background here is 'Egig Ero Far', which you will all recognise as Magyar for 'The Tree That Reached The Sky', the Hungarian equivalent of Yggdrasil, except they were a little more elegant and only had three levels: the roots, which were in the underworld; the trunk, which was the mortal world Hom. Sap. gambolled in; the crown, or celestial regions.  

     ANYWAY AGAIN now that we've got the beginning of the Intro out of the way, and determined that it's all about trees, allow me to pick up on the TREE LAW case that we addressed yesteryon, the DeFranco Deforestation Devastation.  Not to prejudice you the audience.  Art!

     What you see is the 'After' shot after the bad doctor neighbour Leo Eliezer had a tree company cut down 178 trees.  Here the plot congeals a tad.  He claims that his engineer gave the DeFrancos plans of the grading and clearing that was to be carried out, which were approved.  'Approved' by whom is not clear; both homes are part of a Home Owners Association, which says the changes were NOT authorised and the tree-felling ought never to have happened as it breached HOA contractual compliance.  Oooops.  I bet you never saw that coming: an HOA acting in a positive manner.  The Bad Doctor - take that, Eliezer, you've been capitalised! - also claims that the DeFrancos signed off on the changes and he has proof of same.  Art!

Devin Stone, the 'Legal Eagle'

     Both Conrad and Devin find this hard to swallow.  Signing away almost 200 trees that formed the privacy barrier you were verrrrry invested in?  It does not seem likely.  Conrad isn't sure if the discovery process has begun yet; when it does, this document needs to make an appearance.  Linz DeFranco mentioned that the Bad Doctor had sent them documents about the upcoming changes; neither of the DeFs had signed them, and informing a party of upcoming plans does not imply consent.

     Devin, technical lawyer head firmly in place, then looks at Georgia's 'Self-Help' rules.  Which need to determine how intrusive the trees were and how much they encroached on Eliezer's property, DESPITE which said rules - usually applied to overhanging branches or intruding roots - do not give carte blanche to trespass and fell trees.  Art!

Do I need to add 'Before'?

     Devin also mentions 'Conversion', a legal term completely different from 'Trespass', where a person gains profit from illegal possession of another's property.  In this case it's all the felled lumber - where did it go, since it certainly wasn't left on site?  The Bad Doctor is going to have to explain this.  Art!

     Devin also uncovered legal details about Georgia's 'Wrongful Cutting Statute' statutes that might prove worrying in a future trial, as they include the x3 multiplier that other states use in Tree law cases.  Then there's the 'Timber Self Help Statute', which is another law including the x3 multiplier, and which might also mulct the Bad Doctor for trespassing charges, too.  Yes, he can be charged with trespass even if he never crossed the neighbour's boundary line IF he authorised the tree-cutting crew to carry out trespass.  Art!

     Another wrinkle - the tree-cutting company might also be held as having behaved 'Wilfully' in legal parlance, especially if they knew the trees were on a neighbour's property, not the contracting party, and any felling needed permission from the DeFrancos.

     Wowsers, a lot of legal detail to contend with, all thanks to the neighbour being an entitled bottomhole, who seemed more inclined to ask for forgiveness than permission.

     I think we can call a halt here, as there is yet ANOTHER Tree Law case to come, this one about a Japanese Maple.  I bet you can hardly wait.

Being All Literary And Shizzle

Conrad cannot possibly lay claim to any intellectual status, thanks to his love of zombie films and superhero comics.  I might be able to fudge it a bit, though, thanks to having read a few works defined as 'classics', as in - Art!

     

     Conrad has read 'The Odyssey', many decades ago.  The thing I took away from it was the last third, which consists of Odysseus' plotting and planning his revenge, then executing it, and I mean 'executing' in the literal sense. Art!

     No, I haven't read it, but I think I have a knock-off version of it in the Book Mountain.  Art!

     Aware of, not read.  

     Proof I am not the closet intellect you might suspect.

More Bad News For BOOH

There's quite a bit, so let me focus.  You may not recall that E Jean Caroll won her case against King Piggy several years ago, as it's several years ago.  He has spent the intervening years in trying to kick the can down the road and avoid paying up, by appealing endlessly - well, 13 times - in the hope that something will stop the payment process.  

     Alas no.  Art!

Original verdict May 2023

     His case was finally referred to the Supreme Court, the final final final court in South Canada, who unanimously rejected it, 9-0.  Done.  Dead.  Kaput.  Nul.

     What will be interesting now is seeing how Fat Caligula will react to this verdict.  He will, of course, rant and tant about it, blathering about how unfair it all is, how much gold there is in the White House, how hot Natalie is - SORRY Melania, I meant Melania.  His brain is likely to implode a little when he realises he LOST.  Conrad suspects there will be a refusal to pay until legally forced to do so, because Don Snoreleone has long had his funds tied up - legally, 'encumbered' - in property, rather than being liquid and available.  

      Yes, Donold, look askance.

     Bring on the buckets of popcorn!

The Beauty Of Bruce

Pennington, that is.  I hope you appreciate all the artwork we're putting up here, and the hours that Brucie put into his creations.  Art!

     Note the 'Title gap' at the top of the picture.  I seem to recall that this is a book cover I've seen on the shelves, probably a 'Dune' variant.  Ol' Brucie likes his flying craft in multiples receding into the distance, doesn't he?   Not sure the FAA would approve of a flight pattern like that.  Art!

     Close if absent cigar.  Deffo looks like a Guild Heighliner to me.

     Images courtesy of the 'Sci-Fi Art' Youtube channel.

     Actually, reading a couple of blurbs about 'Equator', I may have read it fifty or so years ago.  

Finally -

I'm currently annotating a Youtube channel called 'How Not To Die' and their vlog 'Everything Zombie Movies Get Wrong About Survival', because you'd better believe Conrad will have his own input.  For instance:'Norway, the land designed to be zombie-proof' with more to come.  I bet you can hardly wait.

Tree Of Knowledge Or Knowledge Of Tree?

You May Be Ahead Of Me Here

So I shall try shifting tracks in order to throw you off the scent, as it's a bit irksome if your audience are cleverer than you are.  Art!

     Hay Pesto, the Tree of Knowledge, more mouthfully known as 'The Tree Of Knowledge Of Good And Evil', one dendron paired with the Tree Of Life in the Garden of Eden.  God warned Adam and Eve 'Thou shalt not eat of it' which OF COURSE meant they just had to try a nibble at one of the apples, since nothing tempts like forbidden fruit.  Then they were gifted with the knowledge of Good and Evil, although the opportunities to practice either in the great outdoors when there's only two of you must be limited.  Thus they were banished from Eden, having to learn animal husbandry and the three-field system, also double-entry book-keeping.

     ANYWAY I am indebted to my 'Brewer's' for a whole lot of fabled information about different species of trees.  Art!  

  

     That's an Ash tree, supposedly benign and a healer.  Not if you've read the M. R. James ghost story about an ash tree, which I won't go into lest you get the squitters.  Art!

'Benign' my hairy hindquarters!

     Then there's the Birch, allegedly able to protect babies from fairies yet not schoolboys from hostile masters.  Or the Elder, that guards against disease and cures it.  Call me a cynic but I think I'd prefer a GP to a tree, even if it is hard to get an appointment.  Art!

     In contrition, Conrad has to admit that Elderflower Cordial is jolly nice stuff but wouldn't it be cheaper if they sold it in plastic bottles?  Just a worldly thought.

     I could go on, and probably will, but we need to more on to the second part of today's title rather than listing fifteen hundred species of trees and their mythical qualities, such as the exquisitely dangerous Bottle 'o Beer Tree, that needs to be drained daily.

     So!  Who needs to know all about trees?  Lawyers, attorneys and solicitors, that's who, because trees are extremely Dog Buns! expensive to replace when felled in error, spite or greed.  We've gone over many cases of Tree Law on the blog, which has still not exhausted the subject, since Hom. Sap. are always falling foul of it.  Art!

     The sardonic, if not saturnine, Devin Stone, who runs the 'Legal Eagle' Youtube channel and who manages to make case law entertaining and amusing.  He brought up 3 'Tree law' cases recently, one of which we covered in great depth thanks to it being resolved.  What 'Tree law' afficionados fail to mention is that their cases often take years to get resolved; one on Youtube I read last week took SIX YEARS to arrive at a trial and verdict.

     Let us now move onto Devin's second case, involving a friend of his channel: Philip DeFranco, whom has his own Youtube channel.  Phil and wife Linzi moved back to Georgia in 2024 from California, buying a property with an enormous array of woodland on their side of the boundary line, thanks to a previous owner buying up an adjacent lot for privacy purposes.  Art!

     Phil and sproglets enjoying brekker undisturbed by anyone else.  Definitely 'Before'.

     Their neighbour, Dr. Leo Eliezer, had a retention pond that he wanted to fill in, whatever one of those is.  Hang on - Art!

     It retains water, such as rainwater, and releases it slowly into river systems, trapping heavier pollutants in the sediment.

     The bad Doctor approached the DeFrancos, saying that he wanted to remove 'a couple' of trees on their property for this home renovation project, that he would mark and indicate which were to go, and would notify them before anything was felled.

     A year passed with nothing happening.  Then, suddenly in November 2025 -

     THE TREES WERE ALL GONE!  He lied.  There was no communication, just a mass felling of lumber, with the stumps also being removed, which is quite a job.  Art!

     Most definitely the 'After' shot.  Linz took up the legal cudgels on this one, as presumably Phil has a full-time legal job and wished to avoid a busman's holiday.  Her Tik Tok - whatever that is - video got 3 million views and a flood of people chorusing 'TREE LAW!  TREE LAW!' and pushing for at least nuking the bad Doctor.  

     Linz went the approved non-nuclear route, consulting an arborist, who came out and assessed that 178 trees had been removed, which would cost - sit down here before your knees weaken - $237,000 to replace.  On top of which there would need to be another $263,000 for landscape and ecology remediation.  A cool half-million dollars in total.  This is why Tree Law can get verrrry costly.  Art!

Linz lawyering up

     The DeFrancos - I like to put the plural there to indicate that Phil is providing moral support and beer-drinking services whilst the suit is ongoing - are also getting a professional surveyor to mark out the boundary lines to determine exactly where there land is and isn't.  Not as satisfying a nuking your neighbour but it counts for more in the legal long term.

     I am going to call a halt here as there are more juicy details to deliver, and also Devin weighs in with a legal perspective on what happened.  Be advised that this is 9 months after the event and don't expect any resolution until probably this time next year.  

October In Switzerland

Hmmmm to judge from what you see, this month is a lot more pleasant than the grey foggy soggy boggy melange of melancholia we here in This Sceptred Isle have to cope with.  Art!

     Ami from 'Flavour Trip' disporting in a short skirt and sleeveless top, meaning temperatures aren't too low.  Surprisingly enough when situated next to a racing river up in the foothills of the mountains.  Berne, we are told.  I rather wonder if they didn't record it a few months earlier and release it later.

     ANYWAY being used as background music.

In Complete Contrast

Conrad is still looking at the list of post-apocalyptic novels from the website that began by looking at those similar to 'Greybeard', the novel by Brian Aldiss.  Art!

     Well, I recognised the next one on their list.  Art!

     The title is Latin for 'God of Wrath' and the deity invoked in this novel brings about World War Three and the destruction of nearly all civilisation.  It's actually a collaboration with Roger Zelazny, that both authors wrote intermittently over at least seven years, and one day Conrad might sit down and work out who wrote what.  Yes, there's probably a website that already analysed it, but where's the fun in that?  Caution, deals with religious philosophy quite as much as rogue robots and hyper-intelligent rats.

     Edited to add: there are 10 entries per page and I just spotted this at the bottom - Art!

Whilst On The Subject Of Books

I was even badder and ordered another book from Abebooks this morning.  Art!

     Since brewing my ginger beer has been so simple and rewarding.  I did have a glass of the 'light' bottle yesteryon as it was my birthday, and look forward to the other 3 bottles once the dry season ends 28/08/2026.  Art!

     I have vague memories of trying homebrewing a good forty years ago and cannot remember anything except you need a hydrometer to measure proof.

Ask A Leading Question

Of late, the media re now full of stories and pictures of Natalie Harp, Donnie Dorko's shadow who seems to have suddenly moved into the limelight.  Art!

Someone's had their Weetabix

     Her nickname is 'The Human Printer' because - she prints things?  Officially she's a 'Special Assistant and Executive Assistant' to him, so one presumes she types out his Truths, as he was barely literate before his brain transubstantiated (I encountered that one in my 'Collins Concise' this morning) into mashed potato.

     The counterpoint to Natty, of course - obviously! - is asked by 'The Guardian'.

     Hiding!

     Sweepstake on when the divorce occurs, anyone?