City of Stirling denies liability after verge tree roots cause $4000 worth of pipe damage

This is a tale of a verge tree and an angry cousin. If the subject rings a bell, it’s because last year I wrote a column about a different verge tree and a different cousin.

Whereas my cousin Justin was in the paper last April because the Town of Cambridge slugged him thousands to protect a Chinese tallow that was “imperilled” by the renovation of his Wembley home, cousin Paul is in the paper now because the City of Stirling has left him with a bill linked to a bottlebrush in North Beach.

Treegate 2.0 begins in August, when Paul and his wife Emily noticed the drain in their rear garage wasn’t, well, draining.

They got a plumber out and the tradie put one of those remote cameras down the hole to see where the blockage was. The camera didn’t go far — this pipe was backed up harder than someone who’d eaten five green bananas.

With a high-pressure hose doing little to clear the blockade, the plumber surmised whatever had blocked the pipe had also broken it.

Up came the pavement and what they found was what you can see being held by Paul’s youngest daughter Lucy.

It turned out the roots from the tree on the verge had got into the pipe.

Paul wrote the plumber a $4000 cheque and then wrote his council a letter detailing his desire for compensation because of what was, without doubt, the worst root of his life (and there’s been some competition for that title).

To Paul’s mind, it was a pretty straight up and down situation: the tree that caused the damage was owned by the council and was on council land, so the council bore responsibility.

I think that was reasonable logic, as I am sure many readers do.

In November, close to a month after the city of Stirling had been alerted to the problem, a council tree inspector came out.

He advised the family their compensation claim would be assessed by the city’s insurance company. When Emily asked what they could do to stop the problem from recurring, he shrugged his shoulders.

The only option was installing something called a root barrier, and that would probably be ineffective, he said.

When I asked people in my office what a root barrier was, they said “your face”, which I believe constitutes a psychosocial workplace hazard and will be the subject of my own compensation claim.

But I digress . . .

For weeks, and despite a reminder, Paul and Emily heard nothing from the city of Stirling. On January 30 (this is now five months after the problem was detected) they got a letter from LGIS Mutual Services, which handles public liability matters for the council.

LGIS didn’t dispute the fact the pipe was infiltrated by a council-owned tree that was growing on council-owned land.

It didn’t dispute it because it didn’t care.

“The City of Stirling is not legally liable or responsible for any damage or injury its trees may cause,” the claim assessor wrote in a letter which may as well have carried the title “Too Bad, So Sad”.

The assessor was able to make such a definitive declaration because it turns out that in Stirling, ignorance is a defence.

“With respect to your claim, prior to receiving your complaint, the City of Stirling was unaware that this tree’s roots may have been affecting your pipes,” the assessor wrote.

“On the above basis, the City of Stirling was not negligent and therefore is not liable for the damage caused by the tree roots to your pipes.”

Before we go further, readers should know Paul’s the type of bloke who will blow an O-ring if he can’t get the plastic wrapping off his newspaper in the morning, so you can imagine the reaction when he opened that letter.

He doesn’t understand how on earth an organisation can shirk responsibility simply by saying “we didn’t think this would be a problem”.

I share his confusion. Did the council expect him to predict there was a subterranean risk and warn the city about the potential hazard ahead of time?

Paul decided to contact his local ward councillor, is a chap named Tony Krsticevic. If that name rings a bell, it’s because Tony was a minister in Colin Barnett’s government.

Paul didn’t have high expectations because, while a nice bloke, Tony is walking proof of democracy’s fallibility.

It turned out Tony wasn’t able to discuss the matter because the council thought it could be the subject of legal proceedings.

So not only will the people at the city of Stirling leave you hanging if one of their trees damages your property, they’ll also refuse to let your democratic representative do their job by representing you.

Needless to say, if you chop the tree down to stop the problem recurring, they’ll fine you.

“Considering the scale of public assets in many local government areas, it is not reasonable to expect that all local governments can regularly inspect and maintain every public asset,” the city of Stirling told me.

“The tens of thousands of street trees in the city of Stirling, and their roots, are examples of this.

“LGIS would not attach liability to a local government in a case such as this unless the local government had prior knowledge of the tree root issue and was therefore negligent in failing to take appropriate steps to mitigate the damage.”

The scriptwriters from Yes Minister and Utopia would blush at that nonsense.

By discounting the claim so quickly the council may have done the civic equivalent of bombing Peal Harbour; Paul is speaking to a lawyer about taking the matter to the State Administrative Tribunal.

If he loses there, he’ll do a Darryl Kerrigan and go all the way to the High Court.

I know his lawyer, and she’ll be armed with more than “the vibe” when she gets there.