Judge Denies Ossipee Injunction on Beach Owner

Ossipee — February 9, 2018 — A Carroll County Superior Court judge has denied the town of Ossipee’s request to block a resident from selling her beach property to anyone but the town. The judge also said that the resident, Dianne Sheehan, has the right to speak out against the town’s efforts to purchase her land.

On Nov. 28, Ossipee residents were asked to vote on buying Sheehan’s Camp Sokokis property for use as a town beach. The purchase price was $1.2 million. The property consists of 53 acres with 200 feet of beach frontage, room for 40 parking spaces and access to Route 16B from private Gretchen Road. Town officials billed it as the town’s only chance to own a beach on the lake. The proposal received a 297-171 majority vote but needed a two-thirds majority to carry, so it failed.

At the request of the town, Superior Court Judge Amy Ignatius in December issued a temporary restraining order that prevented Sheehan from selling to anyone but the town. In January, a hearing was held to determine if the court should continue the injunction as well as prevent Sheehan and intervenors John Seda and Paul Fitts from discouraging residents from voting against acquiring the beach if the town is given the chance to vote again next month. Seda and Fitts are seeking to buy the property.

Ossipee — represented by Richard Sager, of Sager and Smith PLLC of Ossipee — maintained that Sheehan broke implied good faith and fair dealings when she lobbied voters to oppose the sale after she had signed a purchase-and-sales agreement Aug. 16 with the town. Sheehan even put up signs on the beach property, urging people to vote no.

Sheehan’s attorney Phillip Marbury said that had residents voted to purchase the beach, Sheehan would have honored her commitment to sell the land. He also said a gag order would infringe on her First Amendment rights.

Ignatius sided with Marbury and denied the town’s motion for the injunction, as the town had failed to show that Sheehan had caused it to lose “a substantial portion of the agreement’s value.” It would be impossible for the town to prove that 15 people changed their votes because of Sheehan’s actions, the judge said.

“Because the town has not offered facts to show that Sheehan’s actions had the ability to or in fact did deprive the town of the funding to complete the purchase, the court finds that the town has not shown that its breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing claim has a likelihood of success on the merits,” said Ignatius.

The town also had to show it would suffer “irreparable harm” if the injunction were not granted and that such harm would be greater than the harm suffered by the defendant.

Ignatius said that the town could not demonstrate irreparable harm because the purchase was contingent on a vote of residents to authorize a bond to buy the property and therefore the town could not prove it had the means to purchase the property.

In terms of the free speech issue, Ignatius wrote, in part, “Any harm to the town is far outweighed by the consequences of the prior restraints the injunction would impose on the defendants’ constitutional right to free speech.”

Finally, Ignatius said the contract between Sheehan and the town didn’t bar the land owner from speaking her mind.

“Her act of signing the agreement despite its language regarding the town vote does not amount to a waiver of her constitutional right to free speech,” wrote Ignatius.

The case, however, isn’t over. The target date for a structuring order is March 5. The town also has withdrawn a fraud claim against Sheehan.

Sheehan told the Sun on Thursday she would be meeting with Marbury to figure out what to do next.

Sager had no comment.

 

 

 

 

5 Comments

  1. Jim D 6 years ago February 9, 2018

    Morgan is a bully. A small town bully at that. It is my position that he believes he is the “Boss Hog” of Ossipee. Not today my good man , not today. Your tactics of preying on the good nature of people then changing your tune are reprehensible.

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  2. scott 6 years ago February 9, 2018

    “Justice is Served”…..To bad it had to go this far…..What’s this structuring order?….Let’s put this behind us….Ossipee is a better town than this….

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  3. Steve 6 years ago February 10, 2018

    The vote was completed in November and the beach purchase was denied by the majority vote.
    Why is the town pushing for another vote?
    Are we going to have to keep voting on this until the town gets its desired result?
    That’s not the way things are done in a democratic society.
    If that were the case, we’d still be voting once a month to elect Hillary Clinton.
    The town lost its bid for a town beach – time to move on.
    Let’s pay attention to business development and try to grow the town tax base instead of wasting energy on this beach fiasco (now referred to as “Morgan’s Folly”).

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  4. Louise 6 years ago February 13, 2018

    Watching the Selectmans meeting on Youtube from last nights meeting, as quoted by Selectman Freeman – “The plan is, the beach is over, it’s over with, done and over with…”

    And for those of you who would like to watch it for yourselves: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLZ0xFfELDM

    Finally this fiasco can be put to rest! It should have never gotten this far.

    I’m sure the town far exceeded the 25K they had put aside for the beach in legal fees over this lawsuit. Who is going to be paying for that, the residents of Ossipee?

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  5. Mike 6 years ago February 14, 2018

    It was interesting to see the BOS, who were pushing so hard to purchase Camp Sokokis, couldn’t give an explanation to an “Ossipee Resident” not someone from Camp Sokokis,when he asked for an update regarding the lawsuit that the town had filed against Dianne Sheehan. Bob Freeman’s response was “beach is done and overwith.” Pretty sad answer/explanation from a Board member who should have been more professional and maybe explained why suddenly the town isn’t pursuing this anymore. I hope when Rick Morgan finally accepts DEFEAT, that he will make some “blueberry jam” and hand deliver it to Dianne Sheehan and SINCERELY apologizes for smeering her name/character throughout this whole fiasco.

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