ABSTRACT
In August of 1984, a tree service cut the overhanging limbs of six pecan trees adjoining Ollie Grove Road in Morehouse Parish, Louisiana, mistakenly believing them to be on the public right-of-way. In fact, the trees stood on property belonging to Barbara Harkness, whose grandfather had planted them sixty years before, and whose recently-deceased father had carefully maintained them.
Several months later, in another part of Louisiana, contractors working for BR Bedsole Timber broke through a four-strand barbed wire fence, knowingly entered Johnny Evans’ land in DeSoto Parish, and reduced to woodchips a number of trees that had stood on the family land since Evans’ great-grandfather Noah Evans was enslaved there. Harkness and Evans both filed suit. Both sought triple damages under Louisiana’s timber trespass statute as well as mental anguish damages under the more general offense (tort) law. Harkness was awarded a total of $1367.36, and Evans received $1291.76. Neither received everything they sought. Harkness, whose six pecan trees survived their accidental trimming, did not receive triple damages for the mistaken trespass, but she did receive $1250 in damages for her mental anguish. The intentional trespass on Evans’ land triggered triple damages (totaling about $1000), but nothing was awarded for his mental anguish, despite far more egregious facts. An intersectional, race-conscious analysis helps us to understand the similarities and differences between these two cases, and to expose the radical insufficiency of devices like timber trespass and mental anguish damages to redress an injury like the one suffered by Johnny Evans.
Kemker, Diane, Redressing the Loss of Slave-Era Trees: Evans v Bedsole and What Louisiana Timber Trespass Law Can’t Do (October 10, 2022), Ecology Law Quarterly, Forthcoming.
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