Right-of-way battle drags on for land-locked civil servant
And despite spending $31,000 to win a Supreme Court battle for access to her home, Ms Joell said her problems have continued.
Ms Joell was awarded costs in the civil case as well as a guaranteed right of way for her and her vehicle to her property at 45 Friswell’s Road.
Before her way started being blocked off by various obstacles, Ms Joell had for many years followed a right of way going diagonally across the back yard of what became Ms Maynard’s property some time in 2004.
And the Supreme Court order, issued in July 2005, granted Ms Joell “full, free and unrestricted passage” via an L-shaped route, at least ten feet wide, along the boundary of Ms Maynard’s property.
However, Ms Joell said the road was not the required width and the right-angled corner was impossible for her car to negotiate. Her request to Ms Maynard to widen the road at the corner has failed to resolve the issue.
A further judgment in April of this year reinforced the decision in Ms Joell’s favour. And yet another order, two months later, gave Ms Joell the right to have any obstacles to her right of way removed and to charge any costs incurred to Ms Maynard.
“If the judge makes an order and nothing happens, then it means the case was a waste of time and money,” Ms Joell, a civil servant with the Ministry of Health and Family Services, said.
“Taxpayers’ money funds the courts and pays for the judges. But the police have told me they are powerless to do anything to enforce the decision.
“I believe the legislation needs to be changed.”
Anyone who fails to obey a Supreme Court order is in contempt of court and risks going to prison.
Ms Joell has tried repeatedly to serve on Ms Maynard a Notice of Motion, which is effectively a legal attempt to send her to prison for being in breach of the past court orders. But on each occasion, the server of the notice failed to deliver it to Ms Maynard.
Two months ago Ms Joell wrote to her local MP Paula Cox, Attorney General Larry Mussenden and Chief Justice Richard Ground, among others, explaining her problem.
Mr. Ground wrote back and said he could do little to help her, as Ms Maynard had applied to set aside the latest order, meaning that the case was before the courts and was being contested.
“I am afraid that, in a civil case, the law does not allow someone to be committed to prison without the formal notice (a Notice of Motion) I have just referred to, and there is nothing I can do to circumvent that.”
Mr. Ground added: “It is often the case in disputes like this that more can be gained by talking to your neighbour than by expensive court cases and there may have to be some give and take.”
The lack of an access road was illustrated when Ms Joell, who lives with her son in the house where she was born, was suffering from a painful stomach problem and called an ambulance.
“The ambulance could not get to the house, so the paramedics had to carry me on a stretcher to the main road,” Ms Joell said.
Ms Joell showed pictorial evidence that obstacles placed close to her gates included cars, concrete breeze blocks and a pile of soil.
In her statement of claim to the Supreme Court, Ms Joell catalogued her difficulties.
On one occasion, in September 2005, a guest at her home was unable to leave in her vehicle, because a parked car was blocking the access.
The following month, a tow truck arrived and pulled a derelict car onto the right of way claimed by Ms Joell, the court statement said.
Ms Joell says the series of events caused her so much worry that she missed several weeks’ work through stress-related illness.
This reporter visited the site yesterday and knocked on Ms Maynard’s door, but no one was at home.
A jet ski and several concrete blacks were arranged along the boundary of Ms Joell’s right of way.
