Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Posts Tagged ‘land use and zoning’

Westport’s wall woes

$150,000 in legal costs to defend challenges to a newly constructed stone wall is admittedly on the high side, but it points up a wider problem that besets the much-envied Connecticut community:

…the dispute opens a window into life in a wealthy suburb, where neighbors have enough money to fight for years over an issue that may have been quickly resolved in a less well-off town. In fact, Westport officials say such cases are not all that unusual.

“More than 50 percent of my day is dealing with these disputes,” said Gordon Joseloff, the first selectman. “In Westport, the people are very wealthy, and at the first indication of anything, they’ll threaten or file a lawsuit.”

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June 12 roundup

  • Judge in Van Buren County, Michigan won’t approve adoptions unless one parent promises to stay home [Ken at Popehat]
  • Critical view of proposed Performance Rights Act, under which radio would pay new fees to artists and copyright owners [Jesse Walker, Reason]
  • Student threatens to sue school district: “You can say she was an exotic dancer and she was 18, but it was not an equal relationship.” [Boston Herald, columnist Margery Eagan, Worcester Telegram]
  • More attention for U.S. Chamber’s movie trailers promoting awareness of lawsuit abuse [NY Times]
  • Train didn’t actually strike her car at dicey RR crossing after gate closed behind her, but New York woman’s suing Metro-North anyway for the bad scare [Westchester, N.Y. Journal-News]
  • Uh-oh: Defamation-and-privacy section of American Association of Law Schools keeps electing as leaders feminist lawprofs known for speech-restrictionist views [Greenfield, earlier]
  • Cows and vows don’t mix: Oregon county says weddings may not be held on farm-zoned land [KTVZ]
  • Paul Offit, author of noteworthy book Autism’s False Prophets, sued by anti-vaccine blogger [Confutata (scroll), Alyric, link to complaint (PDF) at Courthouse News]

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Fractious in Framingham

A long-running controversy pits some elected officials and townspeople of Framingham, Mass., west of Boston, against a social service agency that has proposed the town as a site for halfway houses and other residential facilities for recovering addicts, the homeless and others. Two years ago things turned particularly unpleasant:

…[South Middlesex Opportunity Council] filed suit in federal court this week demanding damages not just from town officials, but from citizens who have dared criticize the agency and challenge its plans.

SMOC’s 99-page complaint [which alleged violations of the Fair Housing Act, federal Rehabilitation Act, Americans With Disabilities Act and Civil Rights Act — ed.] piles up charges against selectmen and planning board members not just in their official capacity, but as individuals. It targets town employees, both named and unnamed. It calls for damages against four Framingham Town Meeting members and two citizens for comments made on a private Web site and e-mails distributed on a privately-operated mailing list.

The ACLU of Massachusetts expressed unease at the naming of private citizens as defendants over their advocacy efforts. While the lawsuit has been narrowed somewhat in the two years since then, it continues to engender much acrimony as it drags on:

Aggravating the ill will is a recent revelation that a man charged with shooting a local police officer had lived in a home run by the agency, the South Middlesex Opportunity Council, or SMOC.

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