DON’T MIND THE… ALLIGATORS?

Perusing one of my favorite sites, Overlawyered, led me to this news item.  It’s about a case in which a landowner sued his neighbor for damages resulting from a condition on the neighbor’s land. 

What was that condition?  Alligators.  Lots of them, apparently.  Well, the land is in the southwestern corner of Mississippi, near the Mississippi River, so I imagine it’s pretty wet there.

Who was the neighbor?  Just so happens it was a large oil company.  Why does that matter? 


This reminds me of a situation I wrote about some time ago where the condition on the neighbor’s property was the neighbor’s bizarre behavior.  In that situation, however, the discussion was about whether or not a home seller was obligated to tell his buyer about the neighbor’s bizarre behavior. 

In the situation blogged on Overlawyered, the landowner was apparently warned about alligators in the area by the broker who sold him the property.

One more possibly relevant fact: alligators are a protected species under Mississippi law, so the neighbor couldn’t have reduced their numbers, anyway.  Can you fence in alligators?