GeorgerwilliamsW (Indiana)
Posts: 975
Posts: 975
Posted:
I want to pick up on the concept of reasonableness when it comes to homeowners associations and communities and neighbors.
There is a near-classic commentary about reasonableness from a 1991 California case, Schild v. Rubin(1991) 232 Cal.App.3d 755. I think it ought to become the standard, and be read at every homeowner association board meeting as an invocation.
"A reasonable person must realize that complete emotional tranquility is seldom attainable, and some degree of transitory emotional distress is the natural consequence of living among other people in an urban or suburban environment. (Fletcher v. Western National Life Ins. Co., supra, 10 Cal.App.3d at p. 397.) A reasonable person must expect to suffer and submit to some inconveniences and annoyances from the reasonable use of property by neighbors, particularly in the sometimes close living of a suburban residential neighborhood.
"[T]he resolution of the issue of a private nuisance involves the conflicting interests of landowners. 'The right of one to make such lawful use of his property as he may desire must be applied with due regard to the correlative right of the other to be protected in the reasonable enjoyment of his property.' Each case must be decided upon its own facts, ... '[E]very annoyance or disturbance of a landowner from the use made of property by a neighbor does not constitute a nuisance. The question is not whether the plaintiffs have been annoyed or disturbed ... but whether there has been an injury to their legal rights. People who live in organized communities must of necessity suffer some inconvenience and annoyance from their neighbors and must submit to annoyances consequent upon the reasonable use of property by others.'"
Amen.
There is a near-classic commentary about reasonableness from a 1991 California case, Schild v. Rubin(1991) 232 Cal.App.3d 755. I think it ought to become the standard, and be read at every homeowner association board meeting as an invocation.
"A reasonable person must realize that complete emotional tranquility is seldom attainable, and some degree of transitory emotional distress is the natural consequence of living among other people in an urban or suburban environment. (Fletcher v. Western National Life Ins. Co., supra, 10 Cal.App.3d at p. 397.) A reasonable person must expect to suffer and submit to some inconveniences and annoyances from the reasonable use of property by neighbors, particularly in the sometimes close living of a suburban residential neighborhood.
"[T]he resolution of the issue of a private nuisance involves the conflicting interests of landowners. 'The right of one to make such lawful use of his property as he may desire must be applied with due regard to the correlative right of the other to be protected in the reasonable enjoyment of his property.' Each case must be decided upon its own facts, ... '[E]very annoyance or disturbance of a landowner from the use made of property by a neighbor does not constitute a nuisance. The question is not whether the plaintiffs have been annoyed or disturbed ... but whether there has been an injury to their legal rights. People who live in organized communities must of necessity suffer some inconvenience and annoyance from their neighbors and must submit to annoyances consequent upon the reasonable use of property by others.'"
Amen.
These suburbanites who can instantly tell you what type of grass you have, what weeds you have, how to get rid of them and what type of trees dropped every single leaf you have on your lawn amaze me.