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Show . THE READER'S COURTROOM . lasfy lieighbor Entitled to Sue I By Will Bernard, LL.B ' May You Sue Somebody Just to be Nasty? A man had two evergreen trees in his yard, near the neighbor's fence. One day the neighbor filed suit against the owner of the trees, demanding that he cut off all branches .extending over the fence. The neighbor claimed that the needles littered his yard, clogged his gutter, and blew into his house. A housewife had a very low opinion opin-ion of her next door neighbor. In fact, she told several friends that the neighbor was "the commonest woman in the block." The neighbor found out about these remarks, and filed an action for slander. She alleged al-leged that the word "common" implied im-plied that she was a person of loose morals. But the court decided she was being too sensitive about the matter and turned down her claim. The judge said that the word "common," at worst, might mean coarse or vulgar nothing more. Should the Police Interfere If Practical Jokers Go too Far? A small-town girl became so movie-crazy that she began imagining imagin-ing strange things. She thought she was being pursued by several talent tal-ent scouts, each one trying to sign her to a film contract! One evening, a group of young people decided to have some fun. They took the girl to a public park and began racing through the bushes with her in a mock search for the imaginary At the hearing, the owner of the trees said: "Your Honor, this man never objected to the branches before. be-fore. The only reason he is objecting object-ing now is that his wife had a quar-reJ quar-reJ with my wife. He's just trying to be nasty!" But the judge nevertheless neverthe-less felt obliged to grant the neighbor's neigh-bor's demand. The judge said that the neighbor was entitled to sue for his rights, no matter how petty his reason was. May Residential Property Be Used as a Free Parking Lot? A woman owned a night club on the edge of town. Right next door was a vacant lot. which was restricted re-stricted to residential purposes only. One day the woman bought this property and began using it as a free parking lot for her patrons. When the neighbors went to court for an injunction, she argued that the lot wasn't being used for a "business purpose" because she didn't charge people for parking there. However, the court ordered her to discontinue the practice at once. The judge said that in reality the lot was being used as part of her night club business and therefore there-fore violated the restriction. pursuers. Gradually the crowd became be-came rougher and rougher, and when the "fun" finally ended the girl had two broken teeth and several sev-eral bad bruises. Later she sued the city for not restraining the actions of the mob. The city protested that the group had just been "fooling around," but the court nevertheless neverthe-less granted the girl's claim. The judge said that, even though the affair started out as a joke, the police should have stepped in when the crowd became ugly. s. |