Henneys Win Highlands Hoops War

Fighting a war over a 7-ft.-high portable basketball hoop has taken a costly toll in the Palisades Highlands. After 3-1/2 years of wrangling and litigation with the Summit Homeowners Association, Dave and Lynne Henney won a summary judgment in Superior Court on July 28 that allows their two boys to once again shoot baskets in the driveway of their home on upper Chastain Parkway. Moreover, at a hearing in Santa Monica on November 30, Superior Court Judge James A. Bascue ruled that the Summit Homeowners Association must reimburse $61,000 in legal fees to the Henneys. ‘I feel like having a Welcome Back! party for our hoop,’ Lynne Henney told the Palisadian-Post, which began covering the CC&R dispute when it still was just a skirmish in March 2002. ‘This has been a nightmarish case but we’re ecstatic that we ultimately won. We fought for the right of all children in our association to play basketball in the family driveway, and I’m thrilled our own children can play once again.’ Despite the victory, outdoor basketball hoops are still not allowed elsewhere in the Summit. The Henneys are now planning to resume their petition campaign to have the Summit board of directors change the CC&R’s regarding outdoor hoops. In the meantime, the Summit board has notified homeowner members that the monthly maintenance assessment will rise 9% on January l to $250. ‘The increase in the monthly fee is primarily the result of the litigation expenses incurred by the Association to date concerning a dispute with a homeowner over a CC&R violation,’ said Debbie Langford of DRL Management in a statement. Back in mid-2001, D.B. Henney, then 10, and his brother Trevor, 8, were playing in the basketball league at the Palisades Recreation Center and enjoyed shooting baskets at home with friends. Unfortunately, a next-door neighbor objected to the noise and complained to the Summit board. On June 13 that year, the board warned the Henneys that their basket was a violation of the association’s CC&R’s, specifically that ‘No basketball backboard or other sports apparatus shall be constructed nor maintained in the Properties…’ The letter added, ‘Please be advised that the basketball hoop must be removed immediately to avoid possible loss of privileges and/or fines.’ The Henneys responded in a letter that ‘although we are guilty of violating this ridiculous, un-American CC&R,’ it did not specifically prohibit portable basketball hoops, and they had found dozens of other homes within the Association with similar hoops. They requested that they be allowed to keep their hoop (a request the board denied), and they launched a petition campaign to overturn the CC&R, gathering approval from more than the required two-thirds of the 312 households. Eventually, the board sued the Henneys ‘to get an injunction preventing them from placing the hoop in a place not approved by the Board,’ said a recent statement from the board’s lawyer, Stanley Feldsott. The board also filed a Lis Pendens against the Henney home. ‘Before the lawsuit was filed, the Henneys offered in writing to submit the matter to binding arbitration,’ said their lawyer, Tim Norton. ‘Three times the Board and their attorneys rejected these offers, and in effect turned down an opportunity to save every homeowner the costs of the entire lawsuit. While the lawsuit was pending, the Henneys made multiple offers to pay money to the Summit to settle the case. The Board and its attorneys refused these offers.’ Meanwhile, ‘during numerous case management conferences with Judge James Bascue, the judge repeatedly warned the Summit lawyers about their case,’ Norton said. ‘He was deeply concerned over the fact that there were 35 other hoops used by other homeowners in the Summit who were not sued.’ Anxious to avoid a costly and lengthy trial, the Henneys filed a motion for summary judgment, and prevailed. On November 12, attorney Feldsott explained Judge Bascue’s decision in a letter to Summit homeowners. In part, he noted that Lynne Henney had ‘sent a letter directed to the Architectural Review Committee of the Association requesting written approval to retain the basketball hoop’ in their front driveway. ‘Within 45 days, the Henneys were advised in writing by the Board that their request for approval was denied.’ However, the Association’s CC&R’s provide that if the Architectural Review Committee does not respond to an application for architectural approval within 45 days, the request is deemed approved’and that’s what proved decisive. ‘The Board, in the absence of an Architectural Committee, denied the Henneys’ request for a hoop,’ Feldsott wrote, but Judge Bascue ruled ‘that the CC&Rs require the Architectural Review Committee to respond to the Henneys’ request and that the denial by the Board was not the equivalent of a denial by the Architectural Review Committee.’ Thus, the basketball hoop was deemed approved.