my side of the fence??

[ritabr]

i live in nc. we share a property line on one side of "sally". my in-laws own in back and on the other side of "sally". so we have her "horse-shoed" in so to speak. the field that my father inlaw owns is leased tobacco land. 'sally' has an 20 year old fence down this property line. an old farmer fence with barbed wire on it. thickets were growing on this fence and over into the leased tobacco land. "someone" went down this property line and cleaned off the thickets (with a small loader) that were only growing on father inlaws side-- some of this mess was twisted and mingled together. the thickets were the main support for this fence--each and every post has rotted off at the ground. it did not losen or damage any of the wire. it only losened the post because their support was gone. "sally" assumed that we did this to her fence. (we do travel this property alot) she has taken a claim against my husband for damage to personal property and has called a local fence installer and got an estimate for 395.00. to replace 5 post and all new barbed wire along the fence. yes, my husband does clean off the property line for us and his dad. did he damage or touch her fence. NO. how do we defend him--say he didnt do it?--he does go over there alot and does alot of tractor work for his dad. how do we prove that yes he has been down by that fence but that he didnt mess her fence up. how can she sue us if she didnt actually see him do it? thanks (never been to court before)

 

[JETX]

The burden of proof is on 'Sally' to show who did the damage, not on you to show that you didn't. If she can convince a court "with 50%, plus 1" that your husband did it, she will probably win. If she only shows "50-50" that he 'could' have done it, she will probably lose. You need to decide how solid your (and her) case is by doing a little "Discovery" homework before trial.