On Sun, 29 Jul 2007 13:50:25 -0700, Sheldon wrote:

Treedweller wrote:
Tom wrote:
I did not personally trim the tree, a tree trimming service did it
recently.

Hire a consulting arborist and sue for your money back plus damages.



Sue for what damages? It's a tree trimming service (not a miracle
worker) that was obviously hired to trim the tree AFTER the tree
became "deformed" (what's a perfect tree anyway). The tree trimming
service did in fact trim the tree, and the customer (Tom) paid them,
obviously Tom was satisfied that the trimmer trimmed as per
agreement. There were no guarantees... the most honored, most famous
arborist in the world can't make any guarantees... lightening can
strike that tree the very next minute. Sue for what damages, the tree
didn't fall on the house during the trimming, there are no damages.

Btw, even from those pictures, anyone can plainly tell that tree is
too tall for that space, it needs removal before it falls on the
neighbor's property, then you can bet your bipee there will be suing,
actually Tom's bipee and only Tom's bipee will be liable. If Tom
values his bipee he'll have that tree removed, pronto.

The pruning that was done did not meet current industry standards, as
explained in the earlier message. Too much living tissue was removed
from the wrong places and the cuts were made improperly. None of that
had anything to do with the lean of the tree (though if they knew what
they were doing they either would have corrected the problem or
explained why the tree was beyond saving once they climbed and
inspected it).

As for "too tall," trees of certain species get tall. They are
designed that way and they do it just fine, until people decide to
muck it all up and ruin their inherent strength by either overpruning
or topping. This tree was suspect because of the wind damage, but
once the "tree trimming service" got through with it, it was quite
definitely destroyed.

And, as for liability, once someone claiming to be a professional
arborist came out, did the job, and did not condemn the tree (I'm
guessing based on Tom's OP), they took on a good bit of the liability
for the tree and any future failure that may occur. It's true that
there are no guarantees, but in this case there are clear indications
of potential hazard that a professional arborist should be trained to
recognize. That should be one of the primary reasons for hiring a
professional. In this case, they dropped the ball and even made the
situation worse. A valuable asset was taken from the OP (albeit in a
slow-motion, tree-time sort of way) and he should demand compensation.

Keith Babberney
ISA Certified Arborist #TX-0236AT