SAN FRANCISCO — An 1872 California law that provides for double or triple damages doesn't assign liability in accidental fires that damage or destroy trees on other peoples' property, the California Supreme Court unanimously ruled last month.
In its 34-page opinion issued Feb. 20, the state's highest court declined "to read anything" in California's timber trespass law, section 3346, "as disrupting the balance evidently struck when the Legislature replaced treble damages for negligently escaping fires with fire suppression liability."
The California State Legislature "can further calibrate this framework if it decides that negligently-caused tree damage deserves even more protection" but, as the law now stand, there is no liability under section 3346 for accidentally set and spread forest fires, the opinion said.
A firefighter overlooking a blaze
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"California protects the public from negligently spread fire, but not through the provisions on damage to trees or timber in section 3346," the opinion said.
Supreme Court Justice Mariano-Florentino "Tino" Cuéllar wrote the opinion. Chief Justice Tani Gorre Cantil-Sakauye, Justices Goodwin Liu, Leondra Reid Kruger Joshua Paul Groban, Fourth Appellate District Associate Justice Richard M. Aronson and First Appellate District Associate Justice Kathleen Banke concurred.
Aronson and Banke sat pro tem in the case in place of Justice Ming Chin and Justice Carol Corrigan, who recused.
The timber trespass law assigns liability in "wrongful injuries to timber, trees or underwood upon the land of another, or removal thereof." It provides for double and triple damages in lawsuits filed up to five years after damage was inflicted.
The plaintiff in the case before the Supreme Court, Vincent Scholes of Colusa County, claimed the law covered damage sustained by trees on his property during a May 2007 fire that started on land adjacent to Scholes, according to the background portion of the opinion.
The adjacent land is owned by defendant Lambirth Trucking Co., who Scholes alleged started the fire that spread to his property.
Scholes filed his initial claim over damage to his trees more than three years after the unintentional fire, which meant his claim could succeed only under section 3346, which provides for two additional years that can pass to file suit.
The Supreme Court agreed with lower courts that already ruled against Scholes.
"Scholes fails to persuade us that the Legislature understood itself to exempt timber, trees, and underwood from an otherwise comprehensive scheme," the opinion said. "California's trees number in the millions; injuries to them could produce enormous liability with the imposition of separate penal damages on top of any otherwise existing potential legal exposure from fire escaping to surrounding properties."
The opinion referred to other rulings that held defendants liable for destroyed timber and other tree and fire-related losses under other relevant laws.
"This robust and comprehensive fire liability scheme strongly suggests that, contrary to Scholes' assertion, the Legislature provided for compensation in the event fire spread negligently instead of leaving a gap implying a need for section 3346 to play that role," the opinion said.