Judges View On What We Would Advise

[Gary Prentice]

This is interesting. The Judge in this case believes that an arboriculturalist, instructed to advise after a fungus was noticed on a tree would go further and elaborate on subsidence issues.

 

http://www.theclayresearchgroup.com/resources/TCCKhanvKane%20HT1199%20Judgment%20030913.pdf

 

 

In relation to T1, Mr Crowley refers to its height. He also says that the existence if fungus on the tree should have led Mrs Kane to instruct an arboriculturalist to advise her and she would then have been advised of the risk of subsidence to her property.

 

Discuss:lol::lol:

[Peter]

Section 60

 

"Therefore if the fungus on T1 had led to an arboricultural investigation, I consider it improbable that it would, in turn, have led to a recommendation that T1 was likely to cause damage to the property."

[Gary Prentice]

I wonder if that opinion would be different if the fungus had been on H1.

[daltontrees]

The way I read it was that the fungus had nothing to do with teh subsidence but that the risk of subsidence from the tree was not foreseeable and Mrs Kane would have no way of being alerted to the tree's potential to cause subsidence. Even if she had noticed the fungus and got someone out to check the tree for safety, it wasn't likely that this process would have resulted in her being told about the tree's subsidence potential. Which is probably right.

 

So I don't think the judge does expect arbs to pick up on subsidence risk when assessing a tree's condition. After all, if you get an instruction to report on condition and risk, you don't report on root spread, soil type, moisture deficit and indeeed anything under the surface.

 

These cases are increasingly taken it as read though that nuisance damage doesn't have to be foreseeable for the tree owner to be liable for compensation, unlike with negligence damage.