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A Southwest Portland family filed a $4.7 million lawsuit Friday afternoon against the city of Portland’s Urban Forestry division and city forester Jenn Cairo, seeking damages after a large tree fell and crushed their home during a winter storm last year.
As Willamette Week reported in early 2024, a massive Douglas fir crushed the home of Sarah and Joel Bond during a brief but severe winter weather spell in January 2024.
The Bonds had sought permission from Urban Forestry to chop down the tree in the fall of 2021, fearing it would eventually fall on their house. Urban Forestry denied the Bonds’ request, stating the tree was not dead, dying or dangerous, nor was it within 10 feet of the Bonds’ home.
A little over two years later, on Jan. 13, the Douglas fir split the Bonds’ home in two. It narrowly missed crushing the Bonds’ 6-year-old daughter, Jojo.
Emails show that in the wake of the storm, Urban Forestry told the Bonds they would have to apply for a retroactive tree removal permit for the tree that had just demolished their house. “I’m just livid,” Sarah Bond said at the time to WW. (Soon after, City Commissioner Dan Ryan waived all tree-related permit fees that resulted from the storm.)
Now, the Bonds are suing the city over the incident. They’re demanding $4.7 million in economic and emotional damages. They’re alleging negligence, negligent infliction of emotional distress, and private nuisance.
The Bonds are also suing on behalf of their two minor children. Their daughter, the lawsuit alleges, cried daily for months after the incident.
The lawsuit alleges that the tree inspector from the city that examined the Douglas fir failed to notice signs of disease and decay, including woodpecker activity and swelling on the trunk of the tree. “He did not perform any testing or detailed inspection of the trees. He told Joel that the trees were not dangerous and the City would not approve removal permit,” the lawsuit alleges.
The city declined to comment, citing ongoing litigation.
The Bonds are suing both Urban Forestry and the city’s forester, Jenn Cairo. The city’s denial of a removal permit, the lawsuit alleges, is a “direct result of Defendant Jennifer Cairo’s strict control and supervision of the city department.” The lawsuit also alleges that Cairo established a “culture within Urban Forestry that leads to an unreasonably rigid enforcement of the Tree Code and that ”prohibits staff from exercising discretion to meet the needs of citizens."
A WW cover story published on March 5 examined the city’s strict enforcement of the Tree Code under Cairo’s leadership.
The Bonds also allege Cairo “lied to the Portland City Council about the Bonds” during a Jan. 16, 2025, meeting of the City Council when she said she was not aware of specific instances during the 2024 storm in which a permit had been denied and then that very tree crushed a home. Cairo soon after that meeting apologized for her remarks.
Cairo has said repeatedly that she was caught off guard by the question from City Councilor Steve Novick, and was unsure of how to respond since the Bonds had at that point filed a tort claim notice with the city. City employees are advised not to talk about ongoing litigation.
Last week, the Portland City Council’s Finance Committee held a work session in which councilors peppered Urban Forestry and Parks & Recreation leaders with questions about the division’s practices.
Cairo and her staff defended the division’s enforcement practices, saying they were necessary to protect the city’s declining tree canopy. (Tree canopies across major cities in the U.S are declining incrementally; the issue is not exclusive to Portland.)
Urban Forestry officials also laid out a picture of a division that is responsive to property owners’ concerns and is working on taking the financial responsibility of tree maintenance off of property owners and transferring that responsibility to Urban Forestry.
Currently, the responsibility to maintain street trees falls on the adjacent property owner. The division could take on that responsibility in the coming years thanks to an infusion of $152 million in cash over the next five years from the Portland Clean Energy Fund, the city’s flush climate tax.
Cairo laid out the division’s plan in the coming years to take over maintenance of all street trees across the city.
“Thanks to PCEF investments, Urban Forestry is building the first ever in Portland street tree maintenance program, which would care for more than 240,000 street trees in the city,” Cairo told the committee. “A large percentage of the concerns Urban Forestry receives are about the city’s long-standing policy which places the responsibility for maintaining street trees on the adjacent property owner. We agree this is a burden.”
The PCEF money will also allow Urban Forestry to set up a program to help property owners pay for the maintenance of trees on their own property, Cairo said.
The division also laid out data that shows 61% of the 109 active tree compliance cases in District 4 required no fee. And since a fee relief program began in 2021, the division said, it’s waived $580,000 in tree-related fees.
Council President Elana Pirtle-Guiney remarked that she appreciated the work of Urban Forestry to protect the canopy. But, she said, “I’m also hearing a lot about a program today with scary notices and an approach that is not public service-oriented, and fees that are later reduced but that freak people out in the meantime, and that’s not the face that I want for the city of Portland.”
Councilor Eric Zimmerman asked Cairo: “I’m looking for your advice in terms of what code change or policy perspective does your organization need so that we can defeat the idea that trees win when there’s a public safety-over-people conversation? My motivation here is to protect the growth without the reputation having us have to walk away from something. So what do you need so that we can overcome some of these reputational issues where trees don’t get to win over public safety or people?”
Cairo assured Zimmerman that “safety is our No. 1 and top priority every day and in everything we do.”
Portlanders testified at the committee meeting, some with concerns about the Tree Code and those who strongly defended it.
One climate advocate, Brenna Bell of 350PDX, criticized WW’s March 5 article on the Tree Code.
“It appeared that Ms. Peel had an agenda for her article and only included sources that supported her agenda, and this is a failure of journalism. And so I’m here asking you all to not have a similar failure in policy,” Bell said. “Focusing on past challenges with Urban Forestry and the Tree Code ignores the truly significant amount of work that’s happening right now to address those challenges.”