PG County jury awards largest tree-cutting verdict in MD history

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A Prince George’s County jury last month awarded a $933,000 verdict to a Bowie homeowner whose neighbor had nine large trees on her property cut down while she was out of town.

The verdict, against Unlimbited Tree Service, is the largest in Maryland history in a case arising from the destruction of trees, according to Lew Bloch, a Potomac-based arborist and landscape architect who wrote a book about notable tree law cases around the country.

Nationwide, only a “handful” of cases have resulted in larger verdicts, according to Bloch.

The jury on Feb. 27 found the company liable for trespass and negligence, awarding $783,000 to restore the property to its original condition, plus $150,000 in noneconomic damages.

“The defense could not run from the pictures and the video showing the devastation. In some ways, it is still hard to believe this actually happened,” Matt Skipper, a lawyer for the plaintiff, stated in a news release. He asked that the plaintiff’s name be withheld.

“We poured everything we had into this trial,” he told The Daily Record.

The plaintiff went to San Diego for a work trip for a few days in February 2024. While she was gone, a neighbor had Unlimbited Tree Service perform work on his property. He left a note in the plaintiff’s mailbox saying he intended to cut the trees down. He and the company made no other efforts to reach her, and she didn’t see the note until she returned and the trees were already cut down.

Many of the trees were mature, at over 30 inches in diameter. The money is enough to plant mature trees rather than saplings, a process that costs nearly $90,000 per tree, Skipper said.

“It boggles my mind that a licensed company would take such action without ever speaking with or receiving written permission from the property owner, my client,” Skipper wrote in a cease-and-desist letter to the neighbor and the company, calling their conduct “outrageous.”

“Any basic due diligence would have led Unlimbited to the conclusion that it needed to obtain my client’s consent.”

The plaintiff sued Unlimbited and her neighbor in January 2025 in Prince George’s County Circuit Court. Shortly before trial, the neighbor settled his claims and exited the lawsuit, with an insurance company paying $500,000, Skipper said. The company moved to reduce the verdict by that amount, to $433,000, and she consented. Because the tort was committed by two parties — the owner and the company — the jury had to decide the total damages suffered by the plaintiff, not the exact harm caused by the defendant, he said.

Chuck Preslipsky, the owner of Unlimbited, said that when his company contracted with the plaintiff’s neighbor, they believed the trees were his and that the two neighbors both wanted them removed. He said tree companies don’t usually check property lines.

“I’m going to trust that (the client) is being honest with me in saying, ‘Hey, this is mine, I own this,’ ” he said. “We’ve never been in this position before.”

Preslipsky said he believed the verdict was “extremely unreasonable,” and intends to appeal.

“It’s an unfortunate situation, I think, for everyone that’s involved,” he said. “It sucks for her, it sucks for (her neighbor), it sucks for me.”