{"id":180,"date":"2020-08-18T21:09:00","date_gmt":"2020-08-18T21:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/?p=180"},"modified":"2023-11-29T21:30:54","modified_gmt":"2023-11-29T21:30:54","slug":"encroaching-tree-trunk-and-roots-constitute-a-trespass-under-montana-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/2020\/08\/18\/encroaching-tree-trunk-and-roots-constitute-a-trespass-under-montana-law\/","title":{"rendered":"Encroaching tree trunk and roots constitute a trespass under Montana law"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The Montana Supreme Court reaffirmed the traditional rule that trees on one\u2019s own land do not unreasonably interfere with the use and enjoyment of neighboring land even if they block the neighbor\u2019s view and so are not nuisances&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/cases.justia.com\/montana\/supreme-court\/da-12-0120.pdf?ts=1462390653\">Martin v. Artis,<\/a>&nbsp;290 P.3d 687 (Mont. 2012). However, the court held that it is a trespass for the tree\u2019s roots to encroach on the neighbor\u2019s land, at least when they are causing harm as they are here by buckling the neighbor\u2019s fence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The court seems to hold that the mere intrusion of the tree\u2019s roots are sufficient to constitute a trespass. Most courts would disagree, relegating the victim to self-help, although the encroaching tree trunk might well constitute a trespass when it damages the neighbor\u2019s fence, as seemed to be the case here.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"taxonomy-category wp-block-post-terms\"><a href=\"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/category\/trespass\/\" rel=\"tag\">Trespass<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Montana Supreme Court reaffirmed the traditional rule that trees on one\u2019s own land do not unreasonably interfere with the use and enjoyment of neighboring land even if they block the neighbor\u2019s view and so are not nuisances&nbsp;Martin v. Artis,&nbsp;290 P.3d 687 (Mont. 2012). However, the court held that it is a trespass for the tree\u2019s roots to encroach on the neighbor\u2019s land, at least when they are causing harm as they are here by buckling the neighbor\u2019s fence. The court seems to hold that the mere intrusion of the tree\u2019s roots are sufficient to constitute a trespass. Most courts would disagree, relegating the victim to self-help, although the encroaching tree trunk might well constitute a trespass when it damages the neighbor\u2019s fence, as seemed to be the case here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-trespass"],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"jsinger","author_link":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/author\/jsinger\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}