Short assignment 2: Incompatible uses

Situation: You work as the legal team that publishes answers to real estate questions in the Sunday edition of a major California newspaper. In January of this year, you received the following inquiry from a reader:
	Question: When we moved into our house in 1987, there were two already-mature pecan trees near the south boundary of our property. The backyards on our block slope uphill, and our neighbor to the south has a detached guest house near our property line that is dug into the hillside, so the lower half of the structure is below grade. The neighbor has recently complained to us that the roots of our pecan trees have cracked the underground walls of his guest house. He has requested that we remove our pecan trees and reimburse him for $16,000 of damages to his guest house. Are we legally responsible for the damages and legally required to remove our pecan trees?

Step 1: Prepare an "Answer" to this question. Use online resources such as Lexis-Nexis and/or Google to learn as much as you can about related conflicts in order to help you provide an informed answer. Do not rely on just one source--try to find out if a consistent or at least prevailing answer exists.

Step 2: Prepare an addendum to your answer in which you provide a brief discussion of the economic issues raised by this conflict and how best to promote an efficient outcome.

Guidelines:
	a.	Include a reference list at the end of your paper.
	b.	Your "answer" should be brief (a paragraph or two), and the overall length of your paper, excluding your reference list,   should not exceed three pages, double-spaced, with reasonable margins and font size (preferably Times New Roman, 12 point).
	c.	Submit two copies:
		(1)	a hard copy, including a title page listing the names of the members of your legal team.
		(2)	an electronic copy without names, submitted as an email attachment.
	d.	I will post the submitted papers online.
	e.	I will evaluate your paper for both content and writing. That is:
		(1)	I will evaluate the quality of the analysis and support you present, and
		(2)	I will evaluate your writing skills, including organization, paragraph structure, mechanics, tone, etc.