William H. Macy denies hiring landscapers to remove the trees from his neighbor’s yard.

The 73-year-old Magnolia actor is denying the allegations made in a $600,000 lawsuit filed by Pierce Brown, his neighbor in Los Angeles. According to Brown’s case, which was submitted to the Los Angeles Superior Court in April, the Oscar-nominated actor “knowingly and intentionally” gave a group of landscapers instructions to cut down and remove “several healthy, decades-old mature pine trees and other vegetation from the Brown Property.”

Macy’s legal team “denies, generally and specifically, each and every allegation” of misconduct in court documents filed on May 31 and obtained by PEOPLE on Friday.

The motion requests that the entire action be dismissed with prejudice on the grounds that Brown was “careless, reckless, and negligent in and about the matters and things alleged.”

Brown’s initial lawsuit stated that “Macy’s workers damaged the gate that connected the two properties in accessing the Brown Property” and “damaged and destabilized the hillside itself.”

Additionally, according to Brown’s attorneys, Macy confessed to his neighbor that he had permitted his workers to do this.

In his most recent legal document, Macy claims that his actions were “committed due to an immediate and imperative necessity… to protect persons from death or serious bodily injury or to protect land or chattel from destruction or injury.”

Following the jail time served by Macy’s wife Felicity Huffman, who was one of several parents implicated in the 2019 “Operation Varsity Blues” college admissions cheating scam, this case was filed.

Huffman, 60, was sentenced to 11 days in jail, one year of supervised release, and a $30,000 fine after entering a guilty plea to conspiring to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud.