Treehouse opposition files Supreme Court briefs

All parties involved in the U.S. Supreme Court case that entangles the treehouse in Holmes Beach have introduced their cases.

The city and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection filed briefs of opposition March 26 in response to treehouse owners Richard Hazen and Lynn Tran-Hazen’s Dec. 22, 2020, writ of certiorari asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case.

The matter began in 2011, when the city discovered the property owners at 103 39th St. were building a treehouse without a permit in an Australian pine tree seaward of the erosion control line on the beachfront.

The city found the structure in violation of the municipality’s land development code and moved for its removal in 2013, sparking litigation with the owners.

The Hazens have since been on the losing end of each ruling through several lawsuits and appeals.

Litigation has so far cost the city $184,955 and the property owners $170,000, according to the parties.

Additionally, almost $100,000 in city fines are bearing down on the Hazens.

Two circuit court cases between the parties remain open, but the property owners petitioned last December for a review by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The property owners previously sought a hearing on a constitutional claim with the U.S Supreme Court in 2018, but the court declined to take up the case.

This time around, it’s unclear if their petition will follow the same route.

The city and DEP’s briefs of opposition argued against bringing the case to the highest court in the country.

“Dismissal with prejudice is the accepted and usual course of proceedings when pro se plaintiffs are given notice of the defects of their pleading and an opportunity to correct them, but repeatedly fail to do so,” the city’s brief states. “Petitioners argue this court should review the case because they have been deprived of ‘equal access to federal courts to seek equal justice, relief and secure their constitutional rights. …’ They have not.”

The DEP’s brief argues that there is no precedent for the Supreme Court to hear the case.

“Petitioners have presented no compelling reasons for granting a petition for writ of certiorari, as the eleventh circuit’s subject decision is not in direct conflict with a decision of another circuit court on the same important matter; the decision did not decide an important federal question conflicting with a state court of last resort; nor did it depart from the accepted and usual course of judicial proceedings,” according to the brief.

Jay Daigneault, the city’s attorney in the matter, told The Islander March 26 that the Hazens did not have a compelling case for the Supreme Court.

“It’s merely a run-of-the-mill inability to properly plead a case that the Supreme Court generally would have no interest in,” Daigneault said.

Daigneault said all that remains is to wait for a response from the court. But he added that there is no timeline for the court to respond.

Hate mail

Tran-Hazen shared in a March 9 email to The Islander an anonymous voicemail she recently received that expressed disdain toward her legal battle.

“Do you realize there are hungry children right here in Manatee County and you have the nerve to try to set up a GoFundMe page for $200,000 for your legal team,” the anonymous caller stated. “I don’t know who the hell you people think you are, but everyone on this island hates you and can’t wait until that treehouse is knocked down.”

“You are off the wall and we can’t wait for you to lose this,” she added.

Tran-Hazen said the message was “one of many” that caused her to stop answering calls for fear of “more nasty notes.” She instead called on Holmes Beach and the DEP to end the litigation.

“Stop wasting our money to fight us,” Tran-Hazen wrote. “Use our tax money to feed the hungry children, fix broken sidewalks, fix flooded streets, and restore our civil rights and our constitutional rights!”

“We cannot even access the court system to get justice these days while hate and violence spread,” Tran-Hazen continued. “Please spread love, not hate.”