Jesus Santiago, a 52-year-old lifelong Brooklynite, was walking home from work along Avenue H between East 17th Street and East 18th Street on the morning of Feb. 12, 2009 when he was struck by the decaying and decrepit tree.

It took the jury less than one hour to deliberate before it reached a unanimous decision in the case that was presided over by Justice Katherine Levine. The reason the decision was reached so quickly, attorneys charged, was this is a scenario that is all too common across the city.

“The way that the city deals with decaying trees, it doesn’t have a policy or procedure at all,” he continued. “There are no city employees trained and out there canvassing neighborhoods looking for stuff like this. They merely react to 311 calls. It’s an amazing who-gives-a-crap attitude with the city. This jury got it, though, because they’ve seen it. They’re from Brooklyn.”

The Department of Parks and Recreation did not respond for a request for comment on its procedure in finding and removing dead or decaying trees. However, its website has a way for citizens to report dead trees, whether they are fallen or still standing or have hanging or fallen branches.

Santiago, a maintenance worker for the New York Public Library for 22 years, suffered significant life-altering injuries that included 25 broken bones and massive internal injuries after being crushed and stuck under the tree.

“Mr. Santiago was walking home from his job when this tree split,” said John Renzulli, Santiago’s attorney. “We’re not talking about a limb falling, we’re talking the entire tree split in half, hit him and crushed him.”

Santiago’s attorney explained that a neighbor had previously made a complaint about the tree in 2006. That neighbor testified in court that she had filed a 311 complaint in 2006 that the tree was in bad shape and that limbs were falling off. At the time, she requested the tree be removed, but after city employees removed the fallen limbs nothing further was done about the tree.

After the tree struck Santiago in 2009, his attorney sent a tree pathologist to examine the site and determined that the tree, a Norway maple tree, suffered from Ganoderma disease which causes trees to rot. The city disputed these claims by claiming to have inspected the tree and determined it to be “fair.”

Fortunately for Renzulli, he found a Google Maps image of the tree from 2007 that depicted it with barely any leaves, in contrast to all of the trees surrounding it and dangerously slumped over the road. He said that when jurors saw that picture, they immediately recognized it for what it was because most of them had experience seeing similar conditions.

The entire jury told Levine that they would like to come back to help determine damages in the case, a move Renzulli called rare. He said that they simply want to make sure that the city is held accountable for a common problem.

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