CAHomeowner
New Member
We found out that the fence dividing our property from our jerk neighbors was 1500 square feet on our side of the property line, when we decided to rebuild our house. In Los Angeles, that's a lot of valuable real estate. The neighbors wanted to do their own survey and the day they got the results, they slapped us with a prescriptive easement lawsuit. Our attorney advised us to start using the disputed land, which was part of their driveway. I sat in a chair a few times and did paperwork, and my sons played on it. The neighbor began chasing my kids off the area and expressed much hostility over us using it, but we were trying to show him what an easement would result in--us all sharing the land.
One evening, my 13 year old son rode his skateboard on the strip of driveway, and the neighbor spotted him, jumped out at him from behind his SUV, and shoved him off his skateboard. My son fell over the 2 foot retaining wall, into our yard, onto his back. His back hit a tree stump and sustained scratches. At the time this occurred, I had a videocamera running due to prior harrassment of my children and myself. As he pushed my son, he yelled, "STAY OUT!!!". My son fell and laid there on his back as the neighbor began yelling about how my son had run over his foot (changed to "feet" when his wife came home and when the police came). My son got up and ran into the house. The kicker is that, being afraid of this neighbor, I was hiding behind the block wall dividing the properties with the video camera, so I only have the audio. I did a citizen's arrest because he was no longer home when the police showed up. The city prosecutor is afraid she can't get 12 jurors to agree that the neighbor shoved my son, so she sent us to mediation. For what, I don't know--we have nothing to lose if he goes to criminal trial and nothing to offer him. We went the other night, and the neighbor finally offered to pay $5,000 toward the psychotherapy my sons are receiving for post-traumatic stress disorder. We've already paid that much---our younger son witnessed the event and is also in treatment---they are scared to death of this man and are prisoners in our house when he is home. In exchange, the neighbor wanted us to sign a statement that it was all a misunderstanding and that he didn't harm our son. We walked out. We plan to sue him civilly, and found out a couple of hours ago that his house is now on the market. We are glad he's moving (big party at our house tonight!!) but don't know if we'll get any justice for our sons, especially the one who suffered the attack. We have other tape recordings of the neighbor harrassing us and intimidating us.
The easement lawsuit was mediated. We ended up giving him $20,000 to get our own land back. Days later, as we removed the old block wall, he was within a foot of my husband's face trying to provoke a fight and his friend was up on their garage roof above my head, exposing himself.
One evening, my 13 year old son rode his skateboard on the strip of driveway, and the neighbor spotted him, jumped out at him from behind his SUV, and shoved him off his skateboard. My son fell over the 2 foot retaining wall, into our yard, onto his back. His back hit a tree stump and sustained scratches. At the time this occurred, I had a videocamera running due to prior harrassment of my children and myself. As he pushed my son, he yelled, "STAY OUT!!!". My son fell and laid there on his back as the neighbor began yelling about how my son had run over his foot (changed to "feet" when his wife came home and when the police came). My son got up and ran into the house. The kicker is that, being afraid of this neighbor, I was hiding behind the block wall dividing the properties with the video camera, so I only have the audio. I did a citizen's arrest because he was no longer home when the police showed up. The city prosecutor is afraid she can't get 12 jurors to agree that the neighbor shoved my son, so she sent us to mediation. For what, I don't know--we have nothing to lose if he goes to criminal trial and nothing to offer him. We went the other night, and the neighbor finally offered to pay $5,000 toward the psychotherapy my sons are receiving for post-traumatic stress disorder. We've already paid that much---our younger son witnessed the event and is also in treatment---they are scared to death of this man and are prisoners in our house when he is home. In exchange, the neighbor wanted us to sign a statement that it was all a misunderstanding and that he didn't harm our son. We walked out. We plan to sue him civilly, and found out a couple of hours ago that his house is now on the market. We are glad he's moving (big party at our house tonight!!) but don't know if we'll get any justice for our sons, especially the one who suffered the attack. We have other tape recordings of the neighbor harrassing us and intimidating us.
The easement lawsuit was mediated. We ended up giving him $20,000 to get our own land back. Days later, as we removed the old block wall, he was within a foot of my husband's face trying to provoke a fight and his friend was up on their garage roof above my head, exposing himself.
