A neighborly fight essentially over a bush in Brooklyn has metastasized into a million-dollar federal lawsuit. And if that weren't cute enough, yesterday 89-year-old Federal Judge Jack Weinstein even toured the disputed strip of land in Midwood, which one neighbor says their family has been maintaining for forty years and another neighbor says they bought fair and square in 2007.
"This is a neighborly dispute which has been transmogrified into a big federal case," Weinstein said yesterday before touring the property with marshals, interns, lawyers, and litigants in tow.
The fight is a pretty textbook property squabble: Marsha Stickler, whose family bought their house at 962 East 29th Street in 1962, is claiming that her new neighbors, the Halevys, had no right to pave over the grass and rip out a tree and a bush that separated their properties. After all, she says her family had been maintaining that strip for decades. But the Halevys don't agree, pointing out that they own the land as far as their deed is concerned. So Stickler, being a stickler, sued. Things get federal because Stickler's primary residence is in Jersey and the suit is for more than $75,000.
City records make it clear the Halevys own the property, but Stickler could still win under a principle called "adverse possession." Not that the Halevy's attorney is showing signs of worry: "I am exceedingly confident the jury will find in favor of the Halevys and allow them to keep the land that is rightfully theirs," lawyer Jonathan Nelson said.
Stickler is suing for a million dollars and to have the property "back the way it was." The case was supposed to go to trial on July 5, but that has been postponed pending Weinstein's decision on the defense's request for dismissal (which is why he visited the property yesterday).
Not that the other neighbors on the block understand what the fuss is about. As one put it, "The whole case seems to be so crazy to be based on a bush."
