118 
PARK AND CEMETERY, 
Important Court Decisions Protecting Street Trees. 
1 he two court decisions given herewith show 
tliat damages may be obtained for injury to trees 
by escaping gas, and that the injunction may be 
used for the protection of street trees that are 
threatened by damage. The latter phase of the 
subject is most interesing. Damages after the 
tree has been destroyed are at best poor substitutes 
for the tree, though valuable as deterrent measures 
in other cases. The injunction that saves the life 
of the tree, however, is a most valuable ally in cases 
where the law’s assistance can be invoked before 
the destructive work is done. 
Extracts from the two decisions follow : 
Injunction Stops Injury to Trees in Minneapolis. 
Frank D. Girten, 613 Lyndale avenue, N., Min- 
neapolis, was granted an injunction by Judge Don- 
aldson to restrain the defendants from cutting, 
mutilating or in any way damaging trees whose 
limbs were threatened by an old house that was 
being moved through the street. 
In the memorandum accompanying his decision 
the court says ; 
“The structure being moved is an old two-story frame 
building, cut into halves for the purpose of taking it along 
the public street to a new location. The part now in the 
street is wider than the street, measuring the latter from 
curb to curb, by at least six inches, to say nothing of pro- 
jecting cornice which gives it an additional width of about 
one foot at the top. Along the route which the building 
must take, in the course of moving, are several large shade 
trees, standing between the sidewalk and the curb on either 
side. One such tree, of about six inches at its base has al- 
ready been sacrificed . to make way for the passage of this 
broken relic of more useful days. The limbs of three others 
now lie bent, distorted and damaged against its ragged sides. 
Plaintiff’s trees, three in number, stand next in the path of 
devastation, one of these a tree fourteen inches in diameter 
at its base, throws its branches out over the street about 
twelve feet beyond the curb. 
There can be no question of the right of plaintiff to the 
protection of this court to save these valuable trees from 
mutilation and possible destruction. The fact that these trees 
are in the street and not within the boundary line of plain- 
tiff s premises does not alter in the least his right to have 
them protected. They are his property. In the absence of 
proof to the contrary, he is the owner of the land in front 
of Ins premises to the center of the street, subject only to 
an easement in the public to use it for the purposes of travel, 
and the usual and ordinary incidents thereof. 
His rights of ownership yield only to the public welfare 
and convenience, and to the power of the municipal authori- 
ties to appropriately adapt the street and maintain it to meet 
the necessities of the traveling public. 
The maintenance of shade trees and ornamental trees upon 
and overhanging public streets has generally the sanction of 
both law and immemorial custom. In our own city it is 
approved and encouraged by express legislation. Relying 
upon such sanction and approval owners of property have 
expended many dollars annually, not only in maintaining 
such trees in front of their property as have been placed there 
by nature, but in setting others out and tending them with 
watchful care. The city has thus been made a place beauti- 
ful — the pride of its citizens. Such trees not only add to the 
attractiveness and comfort of the city as a dwelling place, but 
materailly add to the commercial values of real estate. They 
constitute an important property asset to abutting land own- 
ers, and of such substantial value that not even the Park 
Board or city authorities can arbitrarily destroy them with- 
out making compensation. Any one, not excepting the agents 
of municipal bodies, who wantonly or negligently injures them, 
or permits horses or other animals to deface or girdle them, 
or to be left in such close proximity to them as to make 
injury possible, may be prosecuted and punished in the crim- 
inal courts, and may be required to respond in civil damages 
as a trespasser upon private rights. Even in cases where the 
abutting property owner owns no part of the bed of the 
street, it has been held that his interest in ornamental shade 
trees in front of his premises is a property right which will be 
protected by the courts from spoliation. 
In this case plaintiff’s trees are unquestionably threatened 
with serious damage and irreparable injury without warrant 
of law or shadow of authority. The ordinances of the park 
board have already been violated, and will be further violated 
if defendants are allowed to go unrestrained. 
It is defendant’s claim that by the use of burlap, and rope 
and tackle, the branches and limbs of plaintiff’s trees can be 
drawn away from contact with the moving building without 
injury to the trees: but we have the affidavit of the superin- 
tendent of the park board that this cannot be done without 
great injury to the trees. In any event, its permission of tho.se 
entrusted by the legislature with the control and preservation 
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