Mrs. M and the Tree-Root-Pool-Crack Case

Mrs. M was 80 years old, sick and lived alone.

Mrs. M had a house. She also had neighbors who had trees. The trees had roots. They also had leaves.

Her house had a pool. The pool was cracked. She thought the cracks came from the trees and their roots.

The pool was also covered with the shade of the tree leaves at times. She thought her share of sun shine was reduced because the tree leaves had shade.

Mrs. M sued the neighbors as the cause for the cracks and the shade on the pool.

The neighbors were angry. They hired a lawyer. There was a long battle and then they settled. Then the neighbors sold the house and moved.

Mrs. M noticed there were still trees that had roots, and the cracks on the pool never ceased to be. So she sued the new neighbors for the cracks-again.

This time when the new neighbors hired a lawyer, that lawyer sued the old neighbors who had moved away for failing to warn them about Mrs. M and her cracked pool and all the drama.

Now there were too many people involved with too many lawyers, all fighting over trees and roots and pool cracks.

Then one day a young naive lawyer came along on the case. She thought the whole tree root and pool crack fight was funny. In her journey, she actually met an arborist who studied trees. And finally one day in court, this young lawyer cross-examined the 80-year-old Mrs. M, while she shook on the witness stand. The young lawyer felt bad about shaking Mrs. M but her clients also were tired of this tree root fight too and she had a duty to defend her case. The young lawyer lost her first bench trial though and Mrs. M got her way, while the young lawyer got a bench trial on her resume.

The trees were cut but Mrs. M didn't really want to spend the money out of her settlement to fix the pool.

Six months later, Mrs. M died. She had been dealing with cancer and old age and lots of tree root frustration for years.

Three years after that, a sleepless not-so-young lawyer couldn't stop thinking of the tree case in the middle of the night.

So she got out of her bed and wrote the story of Mrs. M.