The letter did not answer a single question.
I also contacted the county recorder to verify that no additional deed, easement, or association agreement affecting my garage had been filed after the property changed hands. The clerk sent copies of the recorded instruments and confirmed the available history. I paid the ordinary fee, received the ordinary records, and examined them at my kitchen table without calling anyone at the courthouse where I worked. If Patricia hoped my job would tempt me into bypassing procedure, I intended to disappoint her. But it was also true that the proper procedures moved slowly and the motor home remained exactly where she had parked it.
On Thursday I heard a case involving a seventy-year-old woman and a forty-dollar fine for a bird feeder.
The woman wore a heavy cardigan although the temperature outside was in the nineties. She carried a grocery bag filled with photocopies, photographs of a small wooden feeder, and an envelope showing the date her association had delivered the notice. Opposite her sat a representative of a different homeowners association, whose neat folder and expensive pen seemed to promise a straightforward hearing. The representative said the woman's feeder violated a rule restricting outdoor structures.
I asked to see the rule as it existed when the fine was assessed. The representative supplied a paragraph concerning permanent installations, not a removable feeder hanging from a shepherd's hook. I asked whether the association had adopted a later amendment that extended the restriction. He said he believed it had, but could not produce evidence of that amendment or proof that the woman had received notice. I asked about the forty-dollar amount, and he pointed to a schedule of fines that applied only after a written warning and an opportunity to correct a violation.
The record showed that no valid warning had been given.
When I ruled on the claim, I explained the narrow reasons. It was not a declaration that associations could never regulate feeders. It was a finding that this particular association had failed to establish a violation under the rules and procedure it relied upon. The woman lowered her head while I spoke. Later, as I was leaving the courtroom, I heard her tell Ellen that she was relieved she had not paid simply to end the argument.
I had asked her during the hearing why she had gone to the trouble of contesting such a small amount. She answered without hesitation. "Because if I pay it, Your Honor, then it becomes a rule."
Those words stayed with me.
I returned to my chambers and thought about the two cream-colored notices in my kitchen drawer, the motor home occupying my driveway, and a whole street that had begun behaving as though I were a threat to its peace. That woman had not needed special influence. She had needed the right to challenge an unsupported demand before an impartial person. I had given her the process the law provided, and it had taken only minutes to understand the defect in her association's claim.