Pete’s clients owned a hilltop home in West Seattle with views of Puget Sound. Their neighbors had just installed a new roof that blocked those views, despite a restrictive height covenant on their property. During a three-day trial, Pete successfully argued that the restrictive covenant should be interpreted according to the drafter’s intent in 1948, which would prohibit the new roof, rather than the contemporary Uniform Building Code. Armed with historic records and the aid of an architectural historian, Pete persuaded the trial court to order the removal of the neighbor’s new roof and its replacement with a flat roof with two-foot trusses, thus restoring his clients’ views.
The neighbors moved for reconsideration, which was granted, and convinced the trial court to move away from its original interpretation of the covenant and grant three-foot trusses.
Pete appealed and persuaded the Washington State Court of Appeals to uphold the trial court’s initial ruling that the historic intent governed. Moreover, the appellate court held that roof removal was the appropriate remedy because the neighbors, who had continued to build in the face of a timely filed suit, were not innocent defendants. The court based its holding on the fact that the trial judge had no equitable power to lessen the impact of abatement on the defendant. Bauman v. Turpen, 160 P.3d 1050 (Wash. App. 2007).
