My second thought was about insurance. The house is gone, it's up to their investigator to determine the cause. In the worst case, they say, too bad. thanks for the premiums.
My first thought was to build a big ass fence at the property line. Generally be an ass, using my property in the least helpful way possible.
given the dearth of information about the story I'm still a bit befuddled. given the timeframe 1994, it's understandable there isn't much available on the internet. I doubt an island of 120 had a local paper, I doubt even more that the archives would be online. Apparently no records were found for the court case.
There's a temptation to victim blame, there's a temptation to think Presho and Digger cooked up a scheme to get a little attention for the island and Presho's career. I think there's more information, but it seems unattainable.
He won the court case, but got a pittance. There are no answers from the trial.
In the end, I suspect this is a story that will end up much like "where is the other sock" it will vaguely nag at me for a few days, then fall out of mind.
Interesting situation, possibly worth a listen, but clearly no satisfactory resolution is possible (for me anyway). Another fabulously unimportant unanswerable question to irritate my psyche for a few days.