Malaga residents hurt by fallen tree branch and their families to seek compensation from the city council

"We are already in contact with our lawyer," Javier, Sheila's father, told SUR. Sheila is not in hospital but she has sustained injuries as a result of the incident. She is also receiving help for anxiety.

Asmaa Ghanou, the mother of 21-year-old Sumaya who remains in hospital in a serious condition while awaiting surgery in the coming days, also plans to seek compensation from the local council.

"Right now we're just focused on her recovery, but yes, we're going to file a claim. It's clear that the tree was in a poor condition and it has ruined my daughter's life," she said.

"She can't eat and is very anxious. Although she's now on the ward, she's still in a very bad way, waiting to undergo surgery," Asmaa said.

When the tree branch fell, it broke both her shoulder blades and one of them pierced her lung. These are only some of her injuries.

In such cases, the requirements for claiming compensation are that the physical and psychological injuries must be quantifiable in monetary terms, for which a road traffic accident scale is used as a reference. In addition, the victims and their families must prove that the injuries were caused by the falling branch.

Last but not least, it has to be clear that the municipal services are to blame for the improper maintenance of green spaces.

The city council would be exempt if it could prove that the collapse was due to an unforeseeable and unavoidable event, such as a storm or exceptional gusts of wind, as certified by the Aemet state meteorological agency.

In this case, however, the collapse occurred at 3pm on a Saturday in August, when temperatures were high and there was no wind.

Initial analyses carried out by the city council's environmental sustainability department are inconclusive as to the cause of this accident . "The eucalyptus tree in question showed no visible damage and was classified as posing a low risk of falling, following an inspection carried out in October 2025," the city council stated.

According to a report by Talher, the company responsible for maintaining the green spaces in this part of the city, "the broken branch had green tissue and showed no apparent signs of rot, cavities, previous fractures, significant pest infestation or other visible structural defects that would have indicated its structural failure".

Nevertheless, both families are entitled to claim financial compensation. "They have all the environmental legislation on their side," retired botanist Baltasar Cabezudo explained.

"They are living beings and not all of them behave in the same way. It is very difficult to know why this has happened, but it is the council's problem," he added.

According to Cabezudo, when it comes to the maintenance of green spaces, the city council should not seek "one-size-fits-all solutions" but instead treat each tree as an "individual" with its own specific problems.

"The people who know best are the residents living nearby. They are the first to realise that something is wrong," he stated. In this case, according to accounts from residents of the blocks of flats and houses in the area, there were several occasions on which they had alerted the city council to the condition of the group of large eucalyptus trees in this part of Calle Pedro Gómez Sancho.

"I would never plant a eucalyptus tree in a city. It's a species that isn't native to Malaga and grows to an enormous size," Cabezudo said. However, he added that it is "impossible to know whether a branch is going to fall".

"Branches fall because of too much or too little moisture. In this case, I think it may have been due to a weight issue. Let's say that trees manage themselves and they shed the leaves and branches that aren't good for them," he stated.

When submitting their claims, the families must provide all documentation relating to the response by the emergency services that attended the scene on Saturday; photographic evidence of the branch, the condition of the tree and the square; contact details of people who witnessed the accident or were the first to come to the aid of the two injured young women; as well as all medical reports detailing the injuries and treatment Sheila and Sumaya received and the reports on sick leave, rehabilitation and discharge.

The city council has six months to respond to the complaint. If it does not respond within that period, the application is deemed to have been rejected by administrative silence, which opens the way for the matter to be taken to court.

The compensation is not a fixed amount, but rather the sum of the main items, using the scale case law and the administrative courts use to assess personal injury caused by the public authorities.

In the case of serious injuries resulting in moderate long-term effects, compensation usually ranges from 15,000 to 60,000 euros. If the falling branch causes permanent disability or the need for care from third parties, the total compensation (including long-term effects, home adaptations and loss of earnings) may exceed 200,000 or 500,000 euros.

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