Neighbor to Neighbor Disputes

For a court ruling on a case where a owner sued the HOA for injuries from an alteration with a neighbor, see Davis-Stirling.com Dec. 28 2024 Newsletter.

Boy, people sue for anything these days, don't they? The same people who howl over HOAs being too intrusive because they can't put up a fence, raise chickens or install an inflatable hot tub on their ccondo patio now want the same HOA to make neighbor Z be nice to the ???

I'd love to know what these two were fighting over...

Also, what I've learned with folks like this is that the disagreement itself is the goal - the reasons are just a pretext. Any reason will do, including ones that are imaginary.

And they wonder why board members burn out so fast.

"Imposing a duty under these facts would leave associations liable for the outcome of such disputes without the tools to prevent them. This would leave ordinary homeowners holding the bag when special assessments were needed to pay judgments or attorney fees. Regent and Greenhouse played no part in the physical altercation at issue here and should never have been dragged into this dispute.

Accordingly, we find no existing duty of care was breached and decline to recognize a new duty of care requiring a homeowners association or its management company to involve itself in disputes between homeowners outside the confines of the governing documents. Summary judgment was properly granted as to both Regent and Greenhouse."

Among other things, I find it fascinating that the court noted in the briefing section how incoherent the plaintiffs' briefs were. Thjs is why it helps to consider the pros, cons and costs of litigation before you take that step. Nothing's guaranteed, but if you're going to go through the trouble of a lawsuit, you may as well do what you can to tilt the odds in your favor.

Too bad the owner-landlords didn't try harder to quash this before people started throwing hands and then resorting to knives and flashlights. The tenants are lucky they're still walking the earth and/or not doing time in jail.

Wondering if there was resolution somewhere within the tenants’ leases.

The plaintiffs did not use an attorney; they were pro se ("pro per" in California). I find the court's observations unsurprising. Nor is the plaintiffs' loss surprising.

The summary judgment was granted after the trial judge struck out her own motion for disqualification due to bias. She was a senior research attorney for the court of appeals immediately before becoming a superior court judge. In the opinion now published by the court of appeal it claims no writ review was filed, even though two of the three justices were the ones who signed the denial of the writ. It has definitely been very unfair representing ourselves due to financial difficulties that developed over the course of time while having our felony cases dismissed in their entirety. In the video people always ask me who the man smoking the cigarette is. He is the husband of the woman who is holding our 1 year old son inside our home. We had dinner with them two doors down just before this took place. At the time my wife was pregnant and breastfeeding. We had no malicious intentions while defending ourselves from this convicted felon and his girlfriend attacked us inside our home. They lived next door, and four months after doing this to us sold their home to immediate family members of our arresting agency’s detectives department. Yes I did strike him in the head repeatedly with my flashlight, and yes he did receive one stab wound after tackling me on top of my two year old son inside our home and after breaking my teeth while we were pinning my son to a railing. These events were tragic to our family and we lost everything we had trying to remain free and together as a family. I personally feel it was Devine intervention and went from not being a believer to now having faith in our lord and savior Jesus Christ. Our security camera had stopped working a couple months before this happened. It came on for whatever you may speculate for about 3 hours that month and then stopped working again. It captured what transpired in our home that night. The neighbors who did this to us had turned off their own ring camera that faced directly into our front door. That speaks for itself in my opinion. My name is Woolard, and that is my cross complaint. We have now petitioned to the Supreme Court to address legal concerns involved in our civil case. If you truly have a serious question please reach out and I will respond. I do understand the impression the reader is left with after reading the appeals court’s opinion. All I can say is it was written by a bias panel who did it for an old co-worker that they continue to have a close relationship with. Thanks for anyone’s time who reads this. Have a wonderful day.

Did an attorney write this petition of yours?

My only impression is that (1) the appeals court decision does not present all the facts; and (2) this may be due to you all not being attorneys and not knowing how to present the facts.

Lawyers have spent three years in law school and typically operated under the tutelage of more experienced attorneys for some years for good reason.

I would have said it is inherently biased against anyone who does not have serious money.

Are you under the impression that the Fair Housing Act prohibits any act of hostility or harassment against an owner or tenant?

This is not so. The hostility or harassment has to be provably on account of the victim's membership in one of the protected classes. This turns out to be a tall order.

You claim housing discrimination on the basis of familial status. How come you did not file a complaint with HUD?

Consider creating an email address just for discussion of Fair Housing complaints and posting it here. I will email you about the steps to file a HUD (or California CRD) Fair Housing complaint and on what your complaint should exclusively focus (assuming I think the harassment you all suffered is directly related to your familial status).

The forum rules prohibit providing identifying information. Expect your posts here to be deleted (if someone reports them).

These two examples were viable claims of housing discrimination on the basis of familial status.

I redacted some of what you wrote, because I want to be clear about what should and should not go into a Fair Housing Act complaint. All else you posted would be weeded out by HUD specialists. Why? Because proving these other acts were done because of your familial status is impossible without say a paper trail where say a director expressly says he/she wants to do xyz to hurt you because you have kids.

In your case it might be too late (per federal and state statutes) to pursue a Fair Housing Complaint.

Have you moved?

Respectfully, I think it might be time to put this behind you. Chalk it up to a lesson learned. Next time you think you or your family are being discriminated against in violation of the Fair Housing Act, post here. Hopefully I am still around.

From direct experience I have some idea of how hard it must be to read the above.

Yet I feel I have been in your shoes and know it is hard to walk away from being, say, walked all over. (I do not have all the facts. But even reading the appeals court decision I felt something was amiss with how the board behaved. The problem then becomes what approach to use to get a court to address this.)

Many of us have been there. Today I figure I am wiser. I think fighting some of these battles (against Boards violating important covenants and/or federal law) has some upside.

I am sorry you all are still defendants (or counter defendants or cross-defendants). I am glad you all moved.

Keep this forum in mind in the future if you feel there are state or federal fair housing act violations happening.

Good luck to you all.