Family of Boy Killed by a Falling Branch at a Calabasas Park Reaches a $14 Million Settlement

A family's wrongful-death case over the death of their 8-year-old son at a popular Calabasas nature preserve has ended in a settlement of more than $14 million, The Acorn reported.

What happened

The boy was attending a summer day camp at King Gillette Ranch, the 588-acre park off Mulholland Highway in the Santa Monica Mountains, when a large branch broke from an oak tree in July 2025 and came down on a group of children near picnic tables. He was hospitalized and later died; several other people, including another child, were injured, according to the family's attorneys and local reporting. The Herald is not naming the child.

The property is co-managed by the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority (MRCA) along with the National Park Service, the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy and California State Parks. The lawsuit named the MRCA as well as the camp operator and a tree-care contractor working at the site.

Warnings before the fatal break

At the center of the case is what the family's lawyers say the operators knew beforehand. According to the law firm Panish Shea Ravipudi, a branch from the same tree had snapped about a week before the fatal incident, prompting a request for tree care. A contractor who responded documented decay at the trunk and recommended thinning the canopy to relieve stress on the weakened tree, the firm said; days later, another branch failed.

Expert inspections conducted afterward found structural defects and internal decay that, the family's legal team argued, would have been apparent to a trained inspector. "If kids play there, camps must inspect there," said attorney Robert Glassman, who represented the family. KTLA reported that the branch fell from a tree with known decay.

The agency's response

When the suit was filed, the MRCA said it was committed to "a full, thorough, and transparent inquiry" and was cooperating with the parties involved; it did not address the specific allegations of prior knowledge. The agency has said reviews of oak trees on the property were conducted in past years, with some trees removed; whether the tree that failed had been evaluated in those reviews has not been publicly confirmed.

The specific division of the settlement among the defendants was not disclosed, and any payout by a public agency is typically subject to approval by its governing board. King Gillette Ranch remains open to the public.