{"id":238998,"date":"2025-09-19T13:25:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-19T13:25:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/238998\/"},"modified":"2025-09-19T13:25:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T13:25:10","slug":"east-dallas-woman-paralyzed-by-falling-tree-files-suit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/238998\/","title":{"rendered":"East Dallas woman paralyzed by falling tree files suit"},"content":{"rendered":"

The woman who was paralyzed last month when a tree fell on her SUV in East Dallas<\/a> has filed a lawsuit<\/a> against the property owner she alleges is responsible for the incident. <\/p>\n

Maisie Marsau and her husband, Jack Marsau, filed suit against Dan Patterson, who owns the Wendover Road property where the tree was located and also serves as chairman of the Texas Trees Foundation<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cDespite his position and purported expertise in tree management and safety, defendant failed to properly inspect, maintain, and\/or remove the dangerous tree from the property, which leaned heavily over a trafficked public roadway that serves as the carpool lane for Lakewood Elementary School \u2014 where parents pick up and drop off their kids daily,\u201d the lawsuit alleges. <\/p>\n

Marsau\u2019s suit hits back at statements Patterson made to reporters who covered the Aug. 25 incident<\/a>, arguing the tree falling was not a \u201crandom thing\u201d but was instead a foreseeable, dangerous condition and something that \u201cmultiple people\u201d approached him about over the years. <\/p>\n

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\u201cAfter this tragedy, the subject tree was found to have a hollow base and significant internal rotting among other issues, indicating that it had been in a state of decay for some time,\u201d the suit alleges. \u201cTell-tale signs of this dangerous and defective condition existed prior to this incident.\u201d <\/p>\n

Marsau was trapped inside the car for more than an hour before she was extricated by first responders. She suffered a spinal cord injury and is now paralyzed from the neck down, according to the lawsuit, which also says the 32-year-old mother to a 6-month-old daughter will never \u201chold her child without assistance.\u201d <\/p>\n

The lawsuit, which brings claims for negligence, gross negligence and premises liability, is seeking more than $1 million in damages. The case was filed Sept. 8 and has been assigned to Dallas County District Judge Bridgett Whitmore. <\/p>\n

A GoFundMe<\/a> for the family had raised more than $230,000 as of Monday. <\/p>\n

Marsau is represented by Michael Lyons<\/a>, Jackson Smith<\/a> and Mackenzie Howard<\/a> of Lyons & Simmons. <\/p>\n

Counsel for Patterson had not filed an appearance as of Monday. <\/p>\n

The case number is DC-25-16155. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The woman who was paralyzed last month when a tree fell on her SUV in East Dallas has…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":238999,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5135],"tags":[5229,64,356,1596,358,11577,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-238998","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-courts","11":"tag-dallas","12":"tag-texas","13":"tag-the-texas-lawbook","14":"tag-tx","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-united-states-of-america","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115231190362111150","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238998"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238998\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/238999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}