🐓 Neighbors’ Legal Feud Over Chicken Coop Reaches Appeals Court

A neighborly feud arising over a chicken coop took nearly five years of litigation and approximately $90,000 in legal fees to resolve.  Today the Appeals Court had the final say on the matter.

The dispute began in 2016 when Pierre Louis built a chicken coop on his property on Clemens Avenue in Brockton, Mass.  The coop housed about 30 chickens and was situated 20 feet away from his neighbor’s land.  That neighbor, Joseph Sinkiewicz, owned approximately 3 acres of property which was mostly woods. 

Joseph’s house stood about 300 feet from chicken coop.  In addition to the significant distance between the two structures, the coop was concealed from Joseph’s view by the woods and the fence that divided the neighbors.  Despite all this, Joseph claimed that the coop was harming him both financially and emotionally.

He filed a lawsuit against his neighbor in Plymouth Superior Court. The lawsuit kicked off in July 2019.  After a long and torturous procedural history, the matter was finally heard at a ten-day bench trial in late March 2021.

At trial, Joseph leveled a number of legal claims against Pierre: breach of quiet enjoyment and privacy, nuisance, trespass, negligence, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.  Both parties testified.  A member of the town’s health board was also put on the stand.  During his testimony, he told the court that Pierre dutifully maintained the coop and that the town never had any health or sanitary concerns due to the chickens.   Ultimately, Joseph lost on all counts. 

Following the trial, the judge issued a 34-page ruling dismissing each and every one of Joseph’s claims.  The judge’s ruling (attached below) states that Pierre incurred $39,000 in legal fees while Joseph spent a whopping $49 for his counsel.

Undeterred, Joseph appealed the decision.  On appeal, he claimed, in part, that the trial judge erred by refusing to allow photos of manure piles on Pierre’s property into evidence.

According to the Appeals Court’s opinion,

The judge denied the plaintiff’s request, made several days into the long trial, to admit a series of five photographs purporting to show a manure pile on the defendant’s land because they were not disclosed prior to trial. The plaintiff concedes that similar photographs were admitted as Exhibit 5. Three witnesses testified about a manure pile. This decision was well within the judge’s discretion.

Thus, the justices found that exclusion of the photos was permissible and that the judge made no reversible error when she ruled against Joseph.

The full text of the Appeals Court decision is attached here: