Couple Wins $30,000
For Theft of Timber
By M. D. Drysdale

George and Agnes Spaulding never thought their little farm on Route 14 in Royalton would end up in the New York Times.

Of course, they also never thought that a neighbor would cut through a barbed wire fence and cut down 55 100-year-old maples on their property, which lies up toward Interstate 89 north of Exit 3.

Both those things happened, though. The Spauldings recently won a $30,000 judgment against former neighbor Jeffery M. Howe in Windsor County Superior Court.

The Times used the Spauldings’ case to lead off a story that said the rise in timber value, especially American hardwood, is leading to more cases of lumber theft.

"Across the country, trees are disappearing in cases that are often small in scale but largely unsettling," the Times story said.

Spaulding, who is 78 and still milks about 30 Jerseys and Ayrshire dairy cows, discovered the damage to his woodlot in the spring, when he began walking the edge of his pasture, fixing fences. The five-acre stand of mature trees, mostly maple, had been decimated. The forest had been left a mess, with big limbs lying where they were discarded.

Spaulding normally would have discovered the timber theft earlier, but he had been in the hospital for open heart surgery during the winter "so we weren’t walking that much," his wife Agnes explained.

There was no question in their minds what had happened to the trees, she said. The fence had been cut and there was a well-worn roadway leading straight to the neighbor’s property.

The Spauldings’ neighbor, Jeffery Howe, never showed up at any court hearing to contest the case, said the couple’s attorney, Bernard Lewis of Randolph.

Rather, the main legal issues were how to value the trees that were cut down, and whether the Vermont Land Trust was partially liable for producing a map of the property that mistakenly seemed to show that Howe owned the woodlot in question.

Land Trust Map Issue

The Land Trust had purchased an easement on the property from an earlier owner, Charles Phippard. The easement permitted some timber harvesting, and the Trust created a map that was used by the consulting forester, Alan Turner, who allowed the Spauldings’ trees to be cut down.

However, Atty. Lewis was not permitted to include the Land Trust as a defendant in the case, because the map in question had a disclaimer printed on it.

Determining the value of the trees proved complicated. Atty. Lewis argued that they were worth more than the "stumpage" fee that a willing seller would pay to a logger. After all, he argued, the Spauldings didn’t want to sell their trees, they wanted to tap them and keep them.

The final amount of damages, he said, equaled the value of the logs when delivered to the mill, plus the estimated revenue from five years of maple sugaring, plus some legal costs.

Even though the land trust escaped being a defendant in the case, Atty. Lewis was critical of the faulty map. Despite the fact that the correct property line had a fence on it, nobody from the Land Trust came to the Spauldings to ask where the boundary was, he said.

"If you’re going to generate a map, you ought to know what you’re putting out there," he said.

Dennis Shaffer of the Vermont Land Trust was reluctant to comment about the specific situation, because an appeal period is still running.

He confirmed that when the Land Trust takes an easement on property, its mapping department produces a map that shows the current condition of the land at the time of easement. The map can be used by the Trust to make sure that subsequent owners follow through on their agreement under the easement, he said.

The maps are not survey maps, he said and "are not intended to be used as legal documents."

To survey each of its properties would cost "thousands and thousands of dollars," Shaffer said.

Still Sugaring

The theft of the trees won’t keep the Spauldings from maple sugaring. They had tapped those trees only once with buckets, but determined the terrain was too difficult and needed a pipeline. They had nearly decided to buy the pipeline this spring and start tapping that woodlot.

Even without those trees, however, Spaulding still puts out 700-750 taps. The 55 big trees would have added another 100 or 150—translating to 25-40 gallons of sweet syrup a year.

"We’re just hoping that this will wake people up that this kind of thing is happening," Agnes Spaulding said. She noted that the New York Times publicity had one heartwarming result.

"A fellow from New Jersey called and offered to give us some trees to replace the others," she said.

The offer was declined with thanks.