BENTON – A lawsuit filed in federal court claims Nathan Marlen of St. Clair County and Doug Blankenship of Bond County wrongfully cut down trees that belonged to Joseph Lucas of Missouri.
Lucas filed his suit at U. S. district court on Jan. 10.
He claimed Blankenship acted as contractor for Marlen, who owned property in Fayette County adjacent to property Lucas owned.
Lucas’s counsel Britton St. Onge of the Polsinelli firm in St. Louis alleged violation of the Illinois Wrongful Tree Cutting Act.
He claimed it obligates Marlen and Blankenship to pay three times the value of timber that markets for forest products deemed merchantable.
He claimed Lucas owned about 15 heavily wooded acres that his family and guests used primarily for hunting.
A legal description in the complaint indicates the property extended to the center of the Kaskaskia River.
Onge claimed that when Lucas bought the property, there was a small and shallow drainage ditch on it.
He claimed that in 2021, Blankenship’s construction company entered the Lucas property and excavated the ditch to make it wider, longer, and deeper.
Onge claimed Blankenship excavated a new ditch directly across the Lucas property.
He claimed the ditches substantially impeded Lucas’s access to his property.
He added that at Marlen’s direction, Blankenship deliberately destroyed and removed many trees including valuable hardwood trees.
He claimed they acted maliciously, wantonly, and willfully.
“At all relevant times Lucas owned all trees on the Lucas property and had the right of exclusive and immediate possession thereof,” he wrote.
“Replacing the removed and destroyed trees on the Lucas property will cost approximately $200,000,” Onge added.
“Plaintiff had not permitted defendants to enter the Lucas property for any reason,” he continued.
Onge sought statutory damages under the tree cutting law, compensatory damages, and punitive damages.
The court clerk randomly assigned District Judge Staci Yandle.