Civil Code 3346: what it costs to cut someone else's tree

The text

§ 3346(a). For wrongful injuries to timber, trees, or underwood upon the land of another, or removal thereof, the measure of damages is three times such sum as would compensate for the actual detriment, except that where the trespass was casual or involuntary, or that the defendant in good faith believed that the land on which the trespass was committed was his own or the land of the person in whose service or by whose direction the act was done, the measure of damages shall be twice the sum as would compensate for the actual detriment…

§ 3346(c). Any action for the damages specified by subdivisions (a) and (b) of this section must be commenced within five years from the date of the trespass…

CCP § 733. Any person who cuts down or carries off any wood or underwood, tree, or timber, or girdles or otherwise injures any tree or timber, on the land of another person… without lawful authority, is liable to the owner of such land… for treble the amount of damages which may be assessed therefor, in a civil action…

How courts apply it

• Double is the floor. Any wrongful injury to a tree on another's land is at least doubled. "Casual or involuntary" and "good faith belief" reduce treble to double; they do not eliminate the multiplier.
• Treble requires wilful and malicious conduct. Cutting a neighbor's trees to open a view, after being told where the line was, is the typical fact pattern that reaches it.
• "Actual detriment" is proved by evidence of the tree's value. The Council of Tree and Landscape Appraisers Guide for Plant Appraisal is the accepted method: replacement cost or trunk formula for a tree that is gone; cost of cure for one that can be restored; diminution in property value as an alternative. A mature Bay Area oak or redwood routinely appraises in the tens of thousands of dollars.
• Injury counts. Topping, stubbing, girdling and root cutting that damages the tree are injuries under the statute. The tree does not have to be gone.
• Everyone who cut is liable. The neighbor who directed the work and the contractor who did it.

Where it meets self-help

A neighbor may trim encroaching branches and roots to the line, reasonably and without injuring the tree. Cutting that crosses the line, or that injures the tree even on their side, is wrongful injury under 3346. Booska v. Patel is where the reasonableness limit comes from; 3346 is what the limit costs when it is crossed. On a boundary tree co-owned under Civil Code 834, one co-owner who removes the tree without the other's consent faces the same statute.

What a claim needs

1. Ownership: trunk position against the line, documented.
2. What the tree was: species, size and condition before the cutting, from the stump, the remaining wood, your photographs and dated imagery.
3. What was done: the cuts, measured and photographed before the evidence is removed.
4. The value: a CTLA appraisal, with the method shown.
5. Intent evidence for treble: prior notice, warnings, the view the cutting opened.

The Dispute Assessment Report covers 1 to 3; the appraisal is delivered through Urban Forestry Guide; both from one visit.

Sources

1. Civil Code § 3346; Code of Civil Procedure § 733.
2. Council of Tree and Landscape Appraisers, Guide for Plant Appraisal, 10th ed. (ISA).