[Caursedus]

Home owner's insurance.

[Kamepherype]

It depends; what are the respective ethnicities of Steve and Bob?

[GWRIeEQp]

Originally posted by Darius871
It depends; what are the respective ethnicities of Steve and Bob?

[Depolit]

Bob's insurance should pay since he gambled that he knew better than a professional tree service ... and lost Bob has experience and has taken classes in the proper way to cut down trees. Bob has the highest standard of knowledge for the use of chainsaws and cutting down trees and is doing so in the safest possible manner. Where in the OP is he gambling again?

"Professionals" are not the only people who cut trees down in sections, you know.

[HonestSean]

[Arrectiff]

Originally posted by Elok
Eh. Probably Steve should pay. An occurrence this freakish is comparable to an Act of God, as though lightning had struck the tree. If that doesn't satisfy you, perhaps they could split the cost? Then God should pay

[DrunkMans]

Clearly, Bob is liable for the damage. His actions resulted in Steves loss. Nothing else is relevant.

[V8V8V8]

Negligence is irrelevant. Steves house was not hit by lightning, it was destroyed by Bobs tree. If lightning hit Bobs tree and felled it onto Steves house there would also be no negligence but Bob would still have liability since his tree destroyed Steves house.

[ELURNSERB]

Bob's homeowners insurance pays, most likely. But yeah, it's Bob's liability.

-Arrian

[golozhopik]

That must be one big tree or one small trailer for a tree falling to destroy it.

[Garry Richardson]

agreed
In virtually all of the United States, the law says that Bob should pay for Steve's house. There's a good reason for this.

[Juersdodfs]

Anyone who believes that is a lunatic No.

What if a hurricane picked up Bob's house and slammed it into Steve's house. Or what if the hurricane picked up Bob's tree and hurled it ten blocks into Jane's house. Or what if it was Bob's truck that demolished Steve's house, after some thieves had stolen it and parked it next to Steve's house, and a tornado then picked up the truck and slammed it into Steve's house. Steve's insurance pays (and Bob's pays for his house/truck). "Act of God" and all that.

In the example in the OP, you had the convergence of an "act of God" (the siezure) and an intentional act (cutting down a tree) that carries with it some inherent risk of accident. Your hurricane/tornado analogies don't fit.

-Arrian

[Mifsnavassy]

Whoever planted the tree should have know that Bob wouldn't want it there one day. However, Bob shouldn't have waited until after his stroke before starting to cut the tree down, or done it well before the stroke. IMO, this poor planning on Bob's part, and he is totally to blame.

[SusanSazzios]

Originally posted by Slade Wilson

In this scenario bob is definitely liable according to the law as i understand it(and i see people lose cases like this all the time). If you look at it for any length of time, it becomes apparent that many laws were written by idiots, or were simply written to make sure that someone else other than the state had to pay.

[Teareerah]

I think the law would vary by the state - some have partial responsibility, some don't. I know this is true for vehicular accidents, but I don't know about torts in general.

If partial responsibility is in effect, I could see some responsibility going to 'God'. Some would still be to Bob, however (the decision to cut the tree down knowing there was a small chance it would fall in his neighbor's yard). You are responsible for your actions, not your ability; if I am a capable whatever and know how to do something properly, but don't do it properly (for whatever reason), I am still at fault.

In a non-partial responsibility jurisdiction, I would think Bob would be entirely responsible. His action (cutting down the tree) directly led to the damage.

[StincPriene]

Originally posted by Arrian

Of course not. It's an accident. The thing is, people are held liable for accidents all the time. And there are varying degrees of fortuity (some things are purely accidental, some are party accidental/party intentional). People shouldn't be blamed for things that are wholly accidental. It's completely irrational to do so.

We blame people for intentional wrongdoing or negligence because these things have negative consequences and we apply sanctions so that people won't do them and thus we decrease the likelihood of the negative consequences occurring.

Blaming people for wholly accidental consequences serves no such function, because these things are completely beyond their control. It's like random punishment. Imagine if there was a compulsory lottery every week and the "winners" (i.e. the losers) had to burn $1000 of their property for no reason at all. Such an institution would be viewed as perverse, yet our attitude towards blame for accidents is similarly absurd.

You bring up the state. Your solution, I take it, would be to have the state pay for the damage. Not necessarily. The person who should pay in the original case is Steve, or more precisely Steve's insurance company. Steve has effectively been the victim of a random accident, and we have insurance in large part to pool such risks. Of course you could look at it the other way and say that Bob and everyone else should have liability insurance to cover accidents they might be involved in which cause damage to others. The problem is that it is easier for people to judge the value of the insurance they pay on their own property than it is for people to know how much insurance to buy when they might be involved in an accident that causes $10 damage or $10,000,000 damage. It's a lot easier to manage "Steve" insurance than "Bob" insurance.

Either way, when it comes to accidents, there is no blame, and thus no point in having any one member of the community pay more than any other. The moral of this story is that insurance should be compulsory such that we all pool our risks in the case of accidents. So the proper way to think of it is, I think, this: Steve has been the victim of an accident, so everyone should pay to have his house rebuilt. That's because Steve has paid in to the insurance fund that we all pay in to in order to pool our risk. We keep our promise to him by rebuilding his house, and we all benefit by knowing that the promise will be kept if we were to be the victims.

[BoboStin]

Originally posted by David Floyd
Why shouldn't Bob pay? Cutting down a tree with a chain-saw is an inherently high risk activity, especially in a residential neighborhood. This shouldn't even be a big deal - Bob pays, period. He can cry about it not being his fault, but I guess the lesson learned is to shift liability by having a 3rd party do it next time.

If I have a heart attack while driving, should I (or my insurance) not be responsible if I hit a parked car, for example? David Floyd's post in very insightful.

Normally, to hold Bob liable, he would have had to have acted negligently. We had a case in one of my courtrooms, in which a driver had an epileptic seizure (he had no history of epilepsy) and smashed into someone else's car. The decision: no negligent conduct = no liablity, And the innocent driver of the other car had to bear his own expenses.

There is a situation called "untrahazardous activity" when the actor is liable even without negligence. Examples are keeping a wild animal (e.g. tiger) or storing explosives. In these instances, if the activity causes an injury -- even if there's no neligence -- the actor is liable.

I do not know if using a chain saw has ever been held in a court of law to be an ultrahazardous activity. My best guess is that it is.

[Vjwkvkoy]

I was partially wrong about liability with my lightning hitting the tree analogy. If the tree is well maintained and healthy when hit by lightning (an act of god), falls and does damage, then the treeowner is not negligent and not liable! If the treeowner could reasonably have anticipated the damage from an act of god then there is an element of negligence and liability.

So in this case the question is whether Bob was negligent in that he attempted to cut down the tree himself. I wouldnt try to cut down a large tree despite that I have a chainsaw and a bagfull of large trees on my property (some of which I'd like to see gone). Unless Bob was a professional lumberjack I'd say it wasnt reasonable for Bob to attempt to cut down the tree therefore Bob was negligent and liable.