[Leftcoast]

Two weeks ago two 100+ foot Redwoods fell in a Los Gatos neighborhood park crushing two children's play structure and falling on a sidewalk commonly used to connect two neighborhoods by walkers (like me).  Thankfully no one was in the park but it was truly shocking - the diameter of the tree was bigger than the play structure is tall.  They took out power lines, a transformer box, and led to one neighborhood losing power for most of the week.  20 Trucks and work crews descended when weather cleared representing three park services, 2 private forestry firms and several PG&E crews and a contract crew.  A smaller crew is still clearing the mess.

There are two other redwoods still standing.  I hope they aren't taken down but ... we'll see.

So who is to blame? Personally, I don't expect the Los Gatos Park Service to have known these healthy, dark green redwoods were prone to fall - After all they've been standing for a century and looked VERY healthy.  Yet I could see someone suing if the park had not been empty of children and walkers on that blustery day and if the trees had taken out the nearby houses rather than a fence and a bunch of city property.   

Sometimes a tree just falls and no one is too blame. Force Majeure and Acts of God figure in here somewhere and hopefully omniscience hasn't become the legal expectation because every human agency will fall fall short.

By the way, trees took out a handful of other folks not on Stanford streets in the last week's of storms. I wonder if they will all lead to high claims and wrongful death law suits with lawyers trying to affix blame for various acts of God?

[Leftcoast]

Two weeks ago two 100+ foot Redwoods fell in a Los Gatos neighborhood park crushing two children's play structure and falling on a sidewalk commonly used to connect two neighborhoods by walkers (like me).  Thankfully no one was in the park but it was truly shocking - the diameter of the tree was bigger than the play structure is tall.  They took out power lines, a transformer box, and led to one neighborhood losing power for most of the week.  20 Trucks and work crews descended when weather cleared representing three park services, 2 private forestry firms and several PG&E crews and a contract crew.  A smaller crew is still clearing the mess.

There are two other redwoods still standing.  I hope they aren't taken down but ... we'll see.

So who is to blame? Personally, I don't expect the Los Gatos Park Service to have known these healthy, dark green redwoods were prone to fall - After all they've been standing for a century and looked VERY healthy.  Yet I could see someone suing if the park had not been empty of children and walkers on that blustery day and if the trees had taken out the nearby houses rather than a fence and a bunch of city property.   

Sometimes a tree just falls and no one is too blame. Force Majeure and Acts of God figure in here somewhere and hopefully omniscience hasn't become the legal expectation because every human agency will fall fall short.

By the way, trees took out a handful of other folks not on Stanford streets in the last week's of storms. I wonder if they will all lead to high claims and wrongful death law suits with lawyers trying to affix blame for various acts of God?