Hotel out on a limb after pruning incident

It seems a handyman tasked with pruning a tree cut off the branch his ladder was leaning against and, not surprisingly, fell down and injured himself. But it's the hotel's fault for not doing a proper pruning risk assessment, he says, suing the company. I love this response from the hotel lawyer:

David Walton, mitigating, said the hotel owner, Jan Hampton, was not on the premises at the time and would have ensured the task was carried out by specialist tree surgeons if she had been.

''They proceeded to cut the branch that the ladder was leaning against. It is an unusual accident. Laurel and Hardy do this sort of thing,'' he said.