Legal Eaze #12 Cattle Snow/ Abusive Husband

Originally Printed: December 29, 2004

Maxine de Villefranche is an attorney and civil general practitioner with 12 years of experience. She operates her law practice from her home office in Alpine Forest, as well her Lancaster satellite office. She will answer legal questions posed to her by the readers, to the best of her abilities. Please forward your questions to maxinedev@msn.com.

Q. We normally have snow by now. I have acres of land on a slope and located where it is easy for children to invade my property to snow play. Last year, kids damaged my fence and a few cattle got out. Although I repaired the fence and managed to get all my cattle back, how do I avoid a repeat this year?
A. Short of building a high fence around your property and placing signs in various strategic places, as well as standing around to shoo away any trespassers, it might be difficult to stop children from coming onto your property to play. The combination “slope and snow” is what we call an “attractive nuisance” in legal terms. You may even be held responsible if a kid gets hurt on your property. I remember last year, Kern County sheriffs were stopping people from going up to Alpine Forest for that very reason. It is unfortunate that there are insufficient parking spaces at Tehachapi Mountain Park for these families to go up there to play and leave surrounding private properties intact. Just make sure that you have your fence up and have “no trespassing” signs at various locations in order to discourage the invaders as well as potential lawsuits should injuries occur on your land. Keep an eye out to ensure your fence does not get damaged again and write down the license plate number of the vehicles that brought the “destroyers”. It is an excellent way to track down the parents of those children that cause damage to your property and hold them responsible.
Q. My husband drinks a lot and becomes abusive and violent. This is a time of the year where a lot of people are drinking and he thinks this validates an increase in the number of drinks he can have. I fear for myself and my children during the holidays. It is worse than at any other times. What should I do?
A. I am sorry that the holidays are an unhappy time of the year for you. If your husband does not realize how he is harming his family by his heavy drinking, it may be time for you to seek refuge elsewhere. Do you have family or a friend that you can go visit, taking your children with you? By removing yourself and your children from you home, you remove the temptation for your husband to abuse you. It is difficult to decide to leave your husband now, but once you put some distance between and the abuser, you may have a clearer view of your situation. I wish you the wisdom to make the right decision.