Who pays when uninsured car on private property is damaged by falling tree from neighbors yard due to negligence?

Answer 1

Damages to vehicles resulting from a natural occurrence in the United States are covered under the vehicle owners comprehensive insurance. It does not matter who the tree belonged too, your own tree, a neighbors tree or one blown in from a national park down the road, it's all the same. If the vehicle is uninsured then there is no coverage.

If you can prove negligence on the part of the tree owner you could try filing a law suit against them in a civil court. But bear in mind that you would need indisputable evidence of negligence. In order to establish negligence you would need to be able to establish "Foreknowledge", That the neighbor knew of a clear and present danger to the life or property of others and "Negligence", that the neighbor had sufficient time to take necessary steps and knowingly failed to take the reasonable and prudent action that others of the general public would have taken to mitigate the danger.

Property owners are not liable for felled trees or damages resulting from them simply due to ownership of the tree nor due simply to non maintenance of a tree.

Ownership of the tree and even non maintenance of the tree do not constitute negligence under the law as most trees around the country are not maintained.

The only known way to establish legally defined negligence in such a case is to present to the court a copy of a certified letter, return receipt requested to the property owner dated prior to the occurrence of the damage in which you notified the owner of the dangerous condition of said tree. The certified letter should have been delivered in an amount of time prior to the incident that would have given the owner reasonably sufficient time to mitigate the danger. A letter delivered a few days before the loss would not be sufficient to establish neglect in a court of law.

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