It's a real thing, but it's often a thing lawyers like to joke about, in that it exemplifies how ridiculously complex the law is, in that there's a field of law about a very mundane object everyone has seen, but you don't think about a lot.
Every municipality has their own laws on trees and how liability is determined when it comes to trees. And trees are not completely confined to borders. Sometimes, the roots of one tree go into another municipality or state, sometimes the branches hang over another, sometimes, a tree that's in one town falls down into another... tree lawyers are basically there to know who's liable and what the law says for every one of those situations, and many other things.
Tree lawyer, lol
Tree law is actually pretty complex, and is a very viable career.
Thought this was a bit it's not
It's a real thing, but it's often a thing lawyers like to joke about, in that it exemplifies how ridiculously complex the law is, in that there's a field of law about a very mundane object everyone has seen, but you don't think about a lot.
Every municipality has their own laws on trees and how liability is determined when it comes to trees. And trees are not completely confined to borders. Sometimes, the roots of one tree go into another municipality or state, sometimes the branches hang over another, sometimes, a tree that's in one town falls down into another... tree lawyers are basically there to know who's liable and what the law says for every one of those situations, and many other things.
It's a great example of how common law systems are completely insane bullshit written down by extremely unserious people.
You see the same sorts of things in civil law systems, too.
Wait until you get in to fence law. That is also not a bit
i mean, those commons ain't gonna enclose themselves!
One of my customers complains frequently about the previous neighbor taking a foot of her property line when they rebuilt the fence.
In my area oak trees are protected and you get massive fines for cutting them down (not that it stops developers from cutting them down anyway)
A big issue in tree law is angry property owners who cut down or poison trees on neighbouring properties because they're "ruining their view".