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Supreme Judicial Court hears dispute over hotel screening, standing and Anti-SLAPP review
Summary
The Supreme Judicial Court heard arguments in an appeal by Lynn Allagard contesting a zoning board's approval of a hotel expansion and the hotel's counterclaim alleging abusive process under the Anti-SLAPP statute, focusing on whether Allagard has standing and whether the trial court properly applied the Anti-SLAPP second-prong test. Counsel disputed factual evidence about screening vegetation and whether privacy concerns are cognizable under zoning.
The Supreme Judicial Court on oral argument considered whether a neighbor has standing and whether an abusive-process counterclaim properly falls within the Anti-SLAPP statute in a dispute between Lynn Allagard (trustee) and Harborview Hotel Owner LLC over a hotel expansion and a requirement to maintain screening between properties.
At argument, Neil Hartsell, counsel for Allagard, told the court that Allagard agreed in 2008 to support hotel renovations on the condition that screening be installed to prevent guests from looking into her backyard and that the contract includes a successors-and-assigns clause. "She agreed to support your construction provided that screening was put in that would prevent the whoever's on the hotel side looking into her backyard," Hartsell said, citing a written agreement dated April 16, 2008.
Hartsell said the hotel is a long-established, preexisting nonconforming commercial use and that a later permit relocated what he…
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