HAZARD PAY UNLICENSED WORKERS, IF INJURED, CAN COST THOUSANDS.

Byline: BARBARA CORREA Staff Writer

When Jill Friedman needed her trees trimmed, she used to just ask her gardener.

Not anymore.

Friedman, an attorney, now only hires licensed contractors after learning the pitfalls homeowners face when hiring people to work on their property.

She discovered this lesson through her clients, who learned the hard way: If uninsured laborers get hurt on your property, you could get stuck with the medical bill and more.

Friedman's clients, Thomas and Vivian Nelson, hired a trimmer to cut back some trees at their Ventura home. The Nelsons had hired the trimmer several times before and a neighbor had been using him for years, always with good results and no problems.

This time, though, one of the guys on the crew, Luis Flores, was electrocuted trying to reach a eucalyptus tree close to a power line. Tree trimming usually involves a degree of danger, which is why it accounts for so many homeowner-worker liability cases.

Flores' parents in Mexico sued the Nelsons, traveling to Tijuana to provide depositions. A jury said that the Nelsons were not liable for the death. But then, the Ventura County Supreme Court reversed that decision in April. The Nelsons are appealing to the California Supreme Court.

Friedman said that, typically, a death like Luis Flores' would have been covered as workers' compensation under a standard homeowners' insurance policy, even though the contractor who hired Flores was not licensed and had no insurance. But Flores was a casual laborer and didn't work enough hours a week to qualify under workers' compensation law. Based on that technicality, the court said the Nelsons could still be on the hook.

``A homeowner is not expected to know this,'' said Friedman. Indeed, it's hard to imagine how a homeowner could possibly know that the person cutting their tree wasn't covered for workers' comp because they didn't work enough hours. Plenty of people don't even know to ask if the trimmer is licensed, she said.

In a similar case a few years before, Truman and Gaile Lawson of Glendora were sued by a tree cutter who fell from a 50-foot palm tree in their yard and was seriously injured. In that case, the state court ruled in favor of the Lawsons, saying it was not the homeowners' responsibility to be familiar with the intricacies of labor law.

The opposite outcomes of the two cases serves as a warning to homeowners: The rules are very muddy when it comes to who is responsible when a worker is injured on your property.

The good news is that there's a pretty clear way to avoid such tree trials. Resist the temptation to save a few bucks. Pay more for a trimmer with a license and with insurance, even though it's not explicitly required under most homeowners' insurance policies, said Candysse Miller, executive director of the Insurance Information Network of California.

A license doesn't guarantee a trouble-free experience, but it comes close.

``This is a case of buyer beware,'' said Miller, who is in the middle of remodeling her own home and has hired only licensed contractors. ``Spending so much time at Home Depot, (laborers) come up to you and you ask them if they have a license. Then they say, `Oh, I don't have that yet.' ''

John Sevier, a certified arborist and tree accident specialist who has testified as an expert witness in several hundred cases involving trees and legal issues, estimates that only about half of homeowners demand a license before allowing someone to work on their trees.

Sevier describes a San Diego County case he was involved in where a person was going door to door, getting tree work from neighbors. He wound up doing a large tree and was injured.

``It turned into a big legal situation,'' he said. ``If someone knocks on your door and they have a pickup truck and a hand saw, ask for the license.''

Another reason to avoid letting unlicensed workers loose on your trees, aside from liability issues, is that they can destroy valuable property. ``One tree can be worth tens of thousands of dollars,'' said Sevier. ``A tree can get butchered. It's very important financially that you have a certified arborist.''

Plenty of people fail to check the credentials of a tree cutter just because it doesn't occur to them. But price is a big factor too. ``The bid by the unqualified handyman or unlicensed tree cutter is usually half to one fourth of what it would be for a state-licensed or certified arborist,'' said Sevier. ``A large tree job on a substantial property could definitely be into the thousands of dollars. But if you get a bid from someone that's much lower, that's a message.''

Tree trimming injury cases are on the rise, lawyers say, because people are more interested in saving a buck and because there are more unqualified laborers offering their services for such work. An undocumented worker representing an unlicensed company might be more likely to suffer serious injury cutting a tree because he might not have adequate experience, preparation or equipment to do the job, he said.

Meanwhile, in what might be a surprise to some homeowners, an illegal alien injured while trimming your tree would have access to U.S. courts and could recover damages from a stateside homeowner or his insurance company, said John McAvoy, an attorney who has represented tree cutters in Lancaster and Pasadena.

``It's a very common scenario,'' he said. ``Itinerant laborers will get solicited to do yard work, which might include trees. And they get injured with alarming frequency ... a lot of electrical contact injuries.''

An undocumented worker would probably receive less in damages because his lost future wages would have been earned in his home country instead of in the U.S., since he doesn't have legal status to work in the U.S.

``Generally, future lost income arguments are compromised by lack of citizenship,'' said McAvoy. That, of course, would be cold comfort to a homeowner being held liable in some way for an accident.

That's why it probably pays to spend more up front for a licensed, insured tree trimmer, not only to avoid a potential problem, but also to avoid the stress that goes along with it.

barbara.correa(at)dailynews.com

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