Homeonwer's Liability

[Mr. Bill B]

I live in New Mexico. My neighbor had a large tree that he never took care of. It was 40 years old and had never been trimmed. It was 45 feet high with an over grown crown. It was also diseased.

It fell over and landed in my yard. It crushed my fence and my travel trailer doing over $12,000.00 in damage. My neighbor is insured with Allstate.

They claim this was an act of God and will not pay for it, yet I had the state arborists inspect the tree and he said the neighbor is at fault for allowing the tree to get to such a hazardous condition.
What can I do?

 

[ALawyer]

Sue the neighbor and let Allstate -- who will defend him --- give that explanation to the judge, and you'll put the expert on the stand and he'll say it should have been removed because it was diseased and had it been it would not have fallen.

 

[Mr. Bill B]

Thank you for your reply.

I have approached an attorney here and he noted an obstacle under New Mexico law. He said that if the neighbor claims that he did not know the tree was rotten then he can not be held liable.

In fact, Allstate replied that this was the case.

I feel that this is ridiculous.
If you own a tree you have to take care of it.
If you own a dog you have to protect your neighbors from it.
Does this theory hold up or is this more Land of Entrapment garbage?

The other obstacle is that Allstate has a DOLF'ing policy. This stands for Defense Of Litigation File.

It seems that the Allstate bean counters have found out that for claims up to 10,000.00 people will take them to small claims court. For claims over 20,000.00 to 25,000.00 a lawyer will get involved. But for claims between 10,000.00 and 20,000.00 people have a hard time finding an attorney, as I am having. So Allstate does a blanket denial of these claims.


Thanks
Mr. Bill B