By Jenna Greene, from The Litigation Daily
Under the heading “You’ve got to be kidding me,” the parents of an 11-year-old autistic boy in California are fighting a lawsuit by neighbors who say that their son is a public nuisance who has lowered their property values.
But the suit is deadly serious. It’s already been dragging on for more than year in Santa Clara County Superior Court, raising alarm among advocates for people with autism and other disabilities, who fear it could create a terrible precedent and trigger copycat suits.
According to the neighbors on Arlington Court in Sunnyvale, the boy’s behavior over the years has included biting, spitting, hitting, riding his bike into people, taking a banana from the neighbor’s kitchen, going in people’s garages and sitting on a cat. As a result, he “created an as-yet unquantified effect on the otherwise ‘hot’ local real estate market; plainly put, people feel constrained in the marketability of their homes.”
The neighbors want a permanent injunction to stop the boy’s conduct, damages and legal fees.
Over the years, I’ve seen some baseless lawsuits (my favorite was the inmate who sued the federal government for millions, alleging copyright infringement when his photo was taken at booking). But this is something more: it’s dangerous.
As the Autism Society San Francisco Bay Area put it in a written statement, “These actions could raise the further specter of bankruptcy and a life of seclusion dominated by fear of court sanctions. … A ‘public nuisance’ lawsuit is simply no way to address community conflicts about autism or any other disability.”
Baseless suits are supposed to get dismissed. Yet this one trudges on—the boy’s parents, Vidyut Gopal and Parul Agrawal, are due in court in San Jose on Tuesday before Judge Maureen Folan on a motions hearing as the plaintiffs seek access to their son’s medical and school records.
I’m not suggesting it’s OK for their son to attack the neighborhood children. It’s not. And by all means, if the plaintiffs, Robert and Marci Flowers and Kumaran Santhanam and Bindu Pothen, sustained property damage or physical injury as result of the boy’s actions, they’re fully entitled to seek compensation.
However, the only lasting injury alleged in the complaint involved a neighbor who isn’t part of the suit. According to the complaint, the boy threw a basketball at the neighbor’s dog, and she “deflected the ball with her wrist, suffering a lasting injury that persists to this day.”
The plaintiffs are represented by San Francisco solo practitioner Ian Kelley and Hopkins & Carley in San Jose. Neither Kelley nor Hopkins managing partner Jeffrey Essner returned calls seeking comment.
The defendants are represented by Sadhana Narayan of the Narayan Law Firm, who also could not be reached for comment.
The complaint does indicate that the boy’s parents or caregiver were generally on hand when the incidents took place—it wasn’t that they let him roam alone. What they’re faulted for is not preventing him from lashing out, a tall order when dealing with an autistic child.
The real estate allegations seem even more ludicrous. We bought a house in the San Francisco Bay area in July, and have spent some time lately pondering what sellers must disclose. There’s this item from the Seller Property Questionnaire: “Are you (seller) aware of any past or present known material facts or other significant items affecting the value or desirability of the property not otherwise disclosed to buyer?”
What are you going to say: The kid next door has autism? He might spit on you?
There’s another disclosure question: Do you know about any “neighborhood noise problems and nuisances?” But the case that the plaintiffs cite, Alexander v. McKnight, involved a dispute with neighbors who ran a tree-trimming business from their home and used a noisy wood chipper. That’s a far cry from having a kid living next door with a disability—one covered by the Americans With Disabilities Act.
Moreover, the court specified that the nuisance disclosure need only occur if the defendants were still living in the house at the time of a potential sale. In this case, the boy’s family moved more than a year ago. They still own the home, but have been renting it out ever since.
In our society, there are people with mental illness and dementia, with Tourette’s Syndrome and cerebral palsy and intellectual disabilities. Maybe they are disruptive and even scary. But the answer is not a permanent injunction that could bar them from living in their homes, plus damages for marring a neighborhood’s suburban perfection.
The irony is that the property values on Arlington Court probably have been lowered, but due to the lawsuit, not the boy. Because would you want to live next to people who would file such a suit?
IMAGE: Arlington Court in Sunnyvale, California Photo via Google Maps
For more on this story go to: http://www.litigationdaily.com/id=1202737807446/Autistic-Boys-Parents-Sued-by-Neighbors-for-Lowering-Property-Values?back=law&kw=Autistic%20Boy’s%20Parents%20Sued%20by%20Neighbors%20for%20Lowering%20Property%20Values&cn=20150923&pt=Newswire&src=EMC-Email&et=editorial&bu=Law.com