National Post (National Edition)
That stinks: N.B. judge orders couple to pay up for piling fresh manure next to neighbours.
“THE MANURE WAS PILED HIGH AND A PHOTO TAKEN BY GOOGLE FROM A SATELLITE SHOWS IT.”
So massive was the pile of manure lining the edge of David and Joan Gallant’s property in rural New Brunswick, it could be seen using satellite imagery.
And the stench? Unbearable, they said. Especially after it rained or when the wind blew from the east.
But despite the Gallants’ repeated complaints to neighbours Lee and Shirley Murray, the pile of poop just sat there for almost a year, part of an ugly — and escalating — dispute.
The Murrays had without question set out to make the Gallants’ lives “miserable,” Court of Queen’s Bench Justice George Rideout said in a recent decision. “The manure was piled high and a photo taken by Google (Earth) from a satellite shows it.”
And the Murrays’ offensive actions didn’t stop there, the judge said. The Murrays used a snowblower to send snow and rocks onto the Gallants’ property and likely were behind the escape of numerous cows onto their property, causing extensive hoof damage to the lawn.
“I have little doubt these activities were initiated by the Murrays and designed to inflict fear, nuisance and harassment against the Gallants,” the judge said.
Reached by phone, Lee Murray said Friday he and his wife planned to appeal, insisting that they were the ones who had been harassed and that their one-time friends had “made a big fuss over nothing” and were just looking for money.
“There’s more to this,” he said. “This thing isn’t over yet.”
The Gallants purchased their property from the Murrays in Indian Mountain, just outside Moncton, in 2001. The Murray property borders the Gallant property on three sides.
It is not clear from the court records when or what caused the relationship between the two couples to sour. But in court affidavits, the Gallants say things got really bad when, over the course of several days in November 2013, the Murrays deposited hundreds of loads of cow manure along a strip of land next to their property.
On one occasion, the Gallants said they were awoken at 4 a.m. by the sound of a loader dumping manure. “I called Lee Murray on his cellphone to complain, but he hung up on me,” David Gallant, who is retired, said in his affidavit.
“The manure was fresh, unseasoned, wet, raw manure. The smell was disgusting,” he said.
In May 2014, they alleged that about 50 cattle from the Murray property escaped through a gate, causing extensive damage to their lawn from “hoofprint holes” and damage to three trees.
“I saw cow dung all over our property,” David Gallant said in his affidavit.
In September 2014, they say that Lee Murray put a large bale of hay near their back fence, “with the presumably intentional effect that it drew his cattle to eat, urinate and defecate as close to our house as possible.”
It was around this time the Gallants filed a complaint with the New Brunswick Farm Practices Review Board regarding the pile of manure.
The following month, the Murrays finally removed the manure pile, but in the process of doing so, the Gallants alleged, they started a brush fire that caused smoke to enter their garage.
In December 2014, the Farm Practices Review Board held a hearing and concluded that the cattle escape and placement of manure near the Gallants’ property constituted “unacceptable farming practices” and recommended a number of changes.
The very next day the Gallants said they found a long scratch along the side of their car. “It is very unusual to observe this kind of vandalism where we live, on a rural road where the properties are very large and far apart from each other,” David Gallant said.
In early 2015, the Gallants sued the Murrays in an effort to stop to what they said was an “increasing pattern of aggression.”
The judge opens his Jan. 19 decision with this observation: “When neighbours fight, nothing good results. The case now before the court proves this adage.”
Rideout said he had “no hesitation” in finding that the Murrays’ conduct had been “wilful and reprehensible” and awarded the Gallants $15,000 in damages. (The judge noted the Murrays’ insurance company had previously covered damage related to the cattle escape.)
He also issued an injunction forbidding the Murrays from entering the Gallants’ property; spreading manure within 300 metres of their property; blowing snow, rocks or manure onto their property; and communicating with the Gallants, except in writing.
The Gallants could not be reached Friday.
Murray, who reportedly pleaded guilty last year in a separate case to failing to obtain the proper permits to have more than 19 heads of cattle, insisted the manure he had dumped next to the Gallants’ property was old and did not give off an odour. And the debris that was blown onto their property was merely “small shovelfuls.”
Murray insisted he gets along with all of his other neighbours. If neighbours get into a disagreement, they should resolve things by talking, Murray said. Never, he said, was he looking to aggravate the Gallants.
“I’m not that type of guy.”