Neighbor Law: Dealing with Problem Neighbors

Before this happens to you:

Jurors sentenced a First Colony man to a year’s probation Friday for beating his neighbor with a shovel - an act recorded on the victim’s surveillance camera.

Joseph Sybille ... was convicted of the lesser offense of misdemeanor assault in the Nov. 27 shovel attack on Charles Van Wormer. ... Bad blood developed between the neighbors in 1994 when the Van Wormers put a pool in and the fence to Sybille’s yard was not replaced to his satisfaction... Rosen said the attack was the culmination of the constant monitoring and verbal harassment dished out by Van Wormer. His client, he said, was like a prisoner in his own home, with his wife and two teen-age children.

Houston Chronicle
August 30, 1997

Statutory Law

Code of ordinances of the City of Baton Rouge, Louisiana and East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana, Title 12, Nuisances
Law Library Circulation Desk
http://municode.com/resources/gateway.asp?pid=10107&sid=18

Louisiana Civil Code, Book II, Things and the Different Modifications of Ownership. Art. 646-869
Law Library Reference Collection
http://www.findlaw.com/11stategov/la/civilcode.html

West's Louisiana Statutes Annotated (search general index under Adjoining Landowners, Nuisances and Predial Servitudes)
Law Library Reference Collection

Case Law

Search the terms “Adjoining Landowners” Key number 15 and “Nuisances” Key number 279 in Louisiana Digest 2d or Westlaw.

Other Primary Sources

West's Louisiana Law Finder (search under Adjoining Landowners and Nuisance) Law Library Reference Collection

Secondary Sources

Treatises

Backman, James H. and David A. Thomas. A practical guide to disputes between adjoining landowners—easements. Newark, NJ: Matthew Bender, 2000
Search ADLAND in LexisNexis

Hand, Jacqueline P. and James C. Smith. Neighboring Property Owners. Colorado Springs, Colo.: Shepard's/McGraw-Hill, 1988
KF639.H36 1988
Search NEIGHBOR in Westlaw

Doskow, Emily & Cora Jordan. Neighbor Law: Fences, Trees, Boundaries and Noise. 6th ed. Berkeley: Nolo, 2008
KF639.Z9 J67 2006

Warda, Mark. Neighbor vs. Neighbor: Legal Rights of Neighbors in Dispute. 1^st ed. Clearwater, Fla.: Sphinx Publishing, 1991.
K760.W37 1991

Yiannopoulos, A.N. Personal Servitudes: Usufruct, Habitation, Rights of Use. Louisiana civil law treatise, vol. 3. 4th ed. St. Paul, Minn.: West Group, 2000.
Reserve Room KFL124 .Y5 2000

Yiannopoulos, A.N. Predial Servitudes. Louisiana civil law treatise, vol. 4. 3^rd ed. St. Paul, Minn.: West Pub. Co., 2004
Reserve Room KFL124 .Y523 2004

Also search the library catalog for these subjects:

• adjoining landowners
• boundaries estates
• dilapidations
• fences
• nuisances
• party walls
• right of way
• servitudes

Recent Articles

DeDino, N. K., When Fences Aren't Enough: The Use of Alternative Dispute Resolution to Resolve Disputes between Neighbors, 18 Ohio St. J. on Disp.Resol. 887
Journals 2^nd Floor K15 .H57
Find 18 Ohio St. J. Disp. Resol. 887 (2002-2003) on HeinOnline

Washington, W., Neighbor-to-Neighbor Disputes Then and Now. Prac. Real Estate Law, Sept. 2006 at 27
^{4 th} Floor KF566.A3 P73
Find 22 No. 5 PRACREL 27 on Westlaw

Web Sources

Neighbor Law, on MyLawyer.com, at http://www.lawsguide.com/mylawyer/guideview.asp?layer=2&article=114 (last visited June 10, 2008)

Neighbor Problems?, on LawHelp.org/LA, at http://www.lawhelp.org/LA/ (under Housing > Renting –Leases, Rent; last visited June 11, 2008)

Neighbors and Disputes, on FindLaw, at http://realestate.findlaw.com/neighbors/ (last visited June 10, 2008)

Neighbors & Home-Related Disputes, NOLOPEDIA, at http://www.nolo.com/resource.cfm/catID/ D0B308BB-D553- 438E-94E8D66498A911D7/213/243/267/ (under Property & Money; last visited June 10, 2008)

Treeandneighborlaw.com, at http://www.treeandneighborlaw.com/main/ (last visited June 10, 2008)

Mary E. Johns
June 11, 2008