New Jersey man cuts down 32 of his neighbor's trees to get better view, thinking the fine would be $32,000. Turns out he's on the hook for nearly $2 million.

boing
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More like the lawyers in New Jersey are quite vicious once they creak their coffins open after the sun goes down.

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Cities and towns without regulations or zoning against it have been dealing with folks adding another story (or two) to existing houses for that reason. It’s particularly ugly when those are row homes/semi-detached. The worst cases involved the ones who created structural problems, destabilizing other homes or causing a collapse.

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Oooh, tree law! That’s always fun. I’m glad it was actually enforced in this case.

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I hope they also remove the road afterwards, and charge him for that too.

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Ah, the art of outsourcing :rofl:

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Tree law is really fucking cool.

Years ago when I was in BigLaw, there was a partner who seemed to mostly represent very prominent families – ones you know very well indeed – in San Francisco regarding trees (and a few spite fences). These people would think nothing of racking up $100K in legal fees to try to get rid of a tree that was blocking their view.

NB: His book of business was probably not mostly tree law, but all of his stories were about tree law.

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And where is that comic from? I love it.

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In my line of thinking justice would be done only when the trees that were cut are used for the funeral pyre of the rich prick who had them cut down. That sort of thing, that mindset of the rich would call for a terrible price to be paid the rich man.

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I don’t know. My GF showed me on Twitter when she read the tweets featured in the BB post. And then I googled “Tree law cartoon” and found it!

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Previously, it was the Thicket :cry:

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Copse, my dear fellow…

dropped the e and gave them a bell

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Thank you for posting this! That comic is going straight into my memes folder. It’s a highly selective distinction.

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Reddit user u/reachling is the credited artist.
Imgur

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Hey, look! Another formerly rich asshole!

There, fixed it for you.

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Guys like this are usually super gung-ho about property rights. I guess it’s just their property rights. Wilhoit conservatism, etc.

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What an absolute piece of shit, i hope he goes broke

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I know here in Austin touching any native and heritage trees requires a city arborist, even if the tree is dead. I don’t know if they would require permits but the city is over zealous over the trees, which i think is great but it causes a lot of consternation with construction. I did hear of a rich dude earlier in the year that did the same thing as the guy in this article and the fine he had to pay was pennies to them so they pretty much got away with the destruction of old heritage trees :frowning:

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Yeah, where I live has amazing old growth Live Oak trees, and there is a disappointingly small fine (per tree, not multiplied) when “oopsy” a tree happened to disappear during construction. Also, after each hurricane, owners will use “damaged” as an excuse for cutting trees that were undamaged. It fucking sucks.

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Man, if I had a live oak in my garden it would be the centrepiece. No chance with climate or size though :frowning:

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