I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
Those are the first two lines of one of the worst poems ever published, the aptly named “Trees,” written more than a hundred years ago by Joyce Kilmer, and oddly well known, perhaps because the author died fighting in World War I.
Still, we all die, and that doesn’t make our mawkish musings memorable.
The sentiment is sound enough. A tree is an extraordinary creation, beside which even the poems of Tennyson pale.
But not all trees are lovely. Some are positively hideous. And some are dangerous.
Just ask Nathan Chester, who fell from a tree in Edwardsville nearly three years ago and is now suing the owners of the tree in Madison County Circuit Court.
Chester is also suing Johnson’s Landscaping Solutions, the company he was working for when he fell from the tree.
Chester was working as a tree surgeon and is now suing the company and the clients that hired him because he, apparently, was not qualified for the job he was doing.
Or, maybe it was just an accident. Even the best tree surgeons can grab or step on a branch and find out, to their dismay, that it was not as strong as they assumed. Trimming trees, at a high elevation, is a hazardous activity.
The gist of Chester’s argument, however, seems to be that the tree was inherently dangerous and that the owners of the property and the company he was working for should have had it removed before he got there.
The fact that there was something wrong with the tree is why Landscaping Solutions was hired in the first place, of course, and Chester’s services would not have been needed had it already been removed.
Chester may have a case against the landscaping company for failing to train him properly, but he has no case against the property owners, because they hired the company he was working for to solve the problem.