If you’re looking for karma to slap you squarely across the face, go right ahead and mess with a tree that isn’t growing on your property. Because if the owner is wise to the nuances of tree justice, you can kiss a hefty portion of your savings goodbye.
TikTok‘s @merleighw learned this after the death of her tree at the hands of her greedy neighbors, and while it doesn’t appear that she’s taken advantage of her newfound knowledge, her story might just be the most accessible stepping stone any of us will ever have to understanding tree law (insofar as tree law can be understood).
Meranda had long enjoyed the privacy offered up by the sapling in her yard; for years, she took pride in being in the presence of the most genial treeline that the modern American woman could ask for. She liked it so much, in fact, that she had plans on further empowering this tree with a bird feeder, and presumably other such content updates to give thanks for its years of service.
But that dream would never come true, as Meranda would one day discover a tree removal posse in her yard, chopping down her poor tree at the behest of the neighbors (her reaction to which she documents in the video above). Needless to say, the act drew plenty of Meranda’s ire, and commenters urged her to pounce on a lawsuit.
Indeed, the comments section was flooded with anecdotal evidence pointing to how open-and-shut of a case Meranda has on her hands. If one were to heed the wisdom of the Atlas Obscura piece “Tree Law is a Gnarly, Twisted Branch of the Legal System,” one would conclude that since the tree was growing out of Meranda’s lawn, her neighbors were pulling a legal no-no by having the whole thing cut down, and subsequently opened themselves up to the eldritch mercy of tree law.
And folks, there is no mercy to be found there; the article also notes that while tree laws can differ from state to state, their layers and nuances are dense across the board. To give you an idea of the sort of depth in play here, the California Civil Code has six entire sections dedicated to tree and tree-adjacent laws, and breaking one could land you in the hotseat of three different sections of the California Penal Code.
So in case you needed another reason to leave the trees be (because apparently it’s not enough that they play a crucial role in the global ecosystem), there you have it; mess with the wrong conifer, and there will almost certainly be a lawyer out there ready to ruin your day.
