Arbitration & Mediation

It?s mine now, you whippersnapper!

By Christopher Annunziata

It’s every 13 year-old boy’s nightmare.  Losing your football over the fence and into the “crazy old lady’s” yard. Now thrown in the arrest of the “crazy old lady” for doing her best Lionel Hutz imitation and citing the legal precedent of Finders v. Keepers when asked to return the football, add in the resulting lawsuit, and you’ve got the farce that happened in suburban Cincinnati.

While it would appear that the parents of the presumably “snot-nosed kid” initiated a call to the police or else the old woman would not have been arrested, they did try to meet to discuss how they “could peacefully coexist and how [they]  could retrieve anything that might land or blow in her yard.”

This one befuddles me.  Everyone suffers.  The young teen and his friends have to walk on eggshells when playing outside lest a stray gust of wind blow their ball or frisbee into the neighbor’s yard.  The 88-year old neighbor is forced to resume mowing her own lawn, which had previously been mowed by the boy or his father.

I really fault the elderly woman’s lawyer for this.  Frankly, he should know better.

Hat tip to Overlawyered.

Full post as published by CKA Mediation and Arbitration Services Blog on January 05, 2009 (boomark / email).