
Quoting
Discourage self help.
A common assumption is that people have an absolute right to cut offending branches or roots that encroach on their property. This assumption should have been dispelled in 1994 when an appellate court held that there is no absolute right to sever encroaching roots; rather, the test is one of reasonableness. Booska v Patel, 24 CA4th 1786. Thus a landowner's right to remove the portions of a tree that encroach on his or her land must be balanced against the obligations to act reasonably toward adjoining landowners and to refrain from causing foreseeable injury to neighboring property. California Civil Practice, Real Property Litigation 11:42 (West, 2001). A landowner is responsible "for an injury occasioned to another by his want of ordinary care or skill in the management of his property or person, except so far as the latter has, willfully or by want of ordinary care, brought the injury on himself." CC 1714. See also CC 3514 (general obligations to others).