{"id":432,"date":"2017-09-19T18:15:00","date_gmt":"2017-09-19T18:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/?p=432"},"modified":"2023-12-15T21:57:49","modified_gmt":"2023-12-15T21:57:49","slug":"massachusetts-rule-reaffirmed-no-liability-if-an-overhanging-tree-damages-neighboring-property","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/2017\/09\/19\/massachusetts-rule-reaffirmed-no-liability-if-an-overhanging-tree-damages-neighboring-property\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Massachusetts rule&#8221; reaffirmed: no liability if an overhanging tree damages neighboring property"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>A Massachusetts court has reaffirmed the &#8220;Massachusetts rule&#8221; that &#8220;an individual whose property is damaged by an overhanging tree has no cause of action against a landowner of the property upon which the tree lies.&#8221;\u00a0<strong>Shiel v. Rowell, 2017 WL 3616892 (Mass. App. Div. 2017),<\/strong>\u00a0citing\u00a0<strong>Ponte v. DaSilva, 446 N.E.2d 77 (Mass. 1983).\u00a0<\/strong>The court noted the contrary &#8220;Hawaii rule&#8221; that does make a tree owner financially responsible if her own trees overhangs neighboring property and damages it.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"taxonomy-category wp-block-post-terms\"><a href=\"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/category\/nuisance\/\" rel=\"tag\">Nuisance<\/a><span class=\"wp-block-post-terms__separator\">, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/category\/trespass\/\" rel=\"tag\">Trespass<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Massachusetts court has reaffirmed the &#8220;Massachusetts rule&#8221; that &#8220;an individual whose property is damaged by an overhanging tree has no cause of action against a landowner of the property upon which the tree lies.&#8221;\u00a0Shiel v. Rowell, 2017 WL 3616892 (Mass. App. Div. 2017),\u00a0citing\u00a0Ponte v. DaSilva, 446 N.E.2d 77 (Mass. 1983).\u00a0The court noted the contrary &#8220;Hawaii rule&#8221; that does make a tree owner financially responsible if her own trees overhangs neighboring property and damages it.<\/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":[50,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nuisance","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\/432","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=432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}