A fight between neighbors over cutting trees made it to arguments before the Maine Supreme Judicial Court on Thursday.
Patrick O’Brien and Linda Labas cut trees at the edge of their property on Dunn Road in Norway in July 2022, according to court records. Cutting the trees — valued at $1,625 by the Maine Forestry Service — ended with a $25,000 insurance settlement despite the couple’s protest.
The question at the heart of the supreme court arguments was whether the O’Briens’ insurer, MMG Insurance, could settle with the neighbor, Carissa Daniels, “in bad faith.” A lawsuit filed by O’Brien and Labas against Daniels was dismissed at Daniels’ request, which the couple argued denied them due process.
The settlement defeated O’Brien and Labas’ main goal of “disincentivizing a litigious antagonistic neighbor,” his attorney Jens-Peter Bergen said before the panel of six supreme court justices.
The trees straddled the property line but before they were cut O’Brien and Daniels walked the property line and Daniels gave consent for the cutting, which she denies, according to court records.
Daniels had no complaint about the tree cutting for nearly a year, court records said. In April 2023, O’Brien reported seven instances of Daniel’s dogs running loose on his property and told her about it, according to records.
Then in May 2023, O’Brien alleged he suffered a “serious injury” after being assaulted by workers hired by Daniels, court records said. The next day Daniels reported the timber trespass to the Maine Forestry Service, records said.
Eventually O’Brien’s insurance company, MMG, reached a settlement with Daniels for $25,000. O’Brien was not in the mediation meetings and “vigorously objected,” once he learned a settlement had been reached, according to court records.
This case is between MMG and O’Brien, not Daniels, but it has cost her time, money and grief, her attorney Nelson Larkins said. It’s a “small case” that she should have been left out of, he argued.
Daniels was granted a protection from harassment order from O’Brien, Larkins said.
“This isn’t an instance where she’s some type of bad guy,” Larkins said.
Insurance companies have settled in other cases over the objections of people, and courts have not found it was in bad faith, MMG’s attorney Matthew Mehalic said.
Justices on the supreme court will issue a ruling in the coming months.