Two homeowners shared a driveway in Westfield.
A written easement, recorded at the registry of deeds, allowed the plaintiff to use the defendant’s driveway to access the road “by vehicle or otherwise.”
At some point, the neighbors’ relationship soured.
The defendant (according to court documents) installed at least four surveillance cameras pointed at the driveway as well as four speed bumps.
For good measure, the defendant also allegedly put up signage which read “ONE LANE DRIVEWAY NOT A FUCKING STREET,” “STAY OFF OUR FUCKING GRASS,” and “PRIVATE PROPERTY NOT A RACETRACK.”
The plaintiff ultimately filed a lawsuit in land court, seeking removal of the cameras and the speed bumps.
(It’s unclear whether the profanity-filled road signs were at issue in the suit.)
The land court judge sided with the plaintiff and ordered the defendant to remove the cameras.
The defendant appealed.
Today the Appeals Court issued a slip opinion upholding the land court’s decision.
According to the applicable case law,
As the owner of the servient estate, [the defendant] is entitled to make use of his land insofar as it is consistent with and does not materially interfere with the [plaintiff’s] easement rights as the dominant estate…In determining whether a servient estate’s use of its land materially interferes with the dominant estate’s rights, courts have tended to weigh slight inconvenience to the dominant owner’s use of the way against the servient owner’s freedom to use his property in a reasonable manner for his own benefit and convenience and to strike an equitable balance. (Citations and quotations omitted.)
Applying the case law to the facts at hand, the Appeals Court found that the defendant’s cameras “materially interfered” with the plaintiff’s use of the easement.
Where, as a result of [the defendant’s] installation of the cameras with the intent to intimidate the [plaintiff] the [plaintiff] began limiting use of the driveway and requested a new bus stop for [his] child so as to avoid the cameras, there was sufficient evidence to show that the cameras materially interfered with their right to use the driveway.
The full text of the slip opinion is attached below.