Court admonishes residents for shooting at couple’s yard light

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Although an appeals court judge has found that that a couple must pay fines and attorneys fees for violating a town ordinance, he admonished the northern Wisconsin town’s residents for shooting at the couple’s offending yard light.

The court’s decision Tuesday stems from a light on a pole John and Michele Stilson installed in 2011 on their property, which is on North Turtle Lake in the town of Winchester. According to the couple, the light was for John Stilson’s safety when he was in the yard because he has a physical disability.

Over several years, the Stilsons had to remove and modify the light, which was damaged on occasion by gunshots. Vilas County Circuit Court Judge Neal Nielsen had stated that the bullet holes were “a message by some idiot” protesting the light and indicated no ill will toward the Stilsons.

Nevertheless, District 3 Court of Appeals Judge Thomas Hruz took time in a footnote in Tuesday’s decision to admonish residents’ use of violence in protesting the light.

“Regardless of any shooter’s intentions, the law abhors this extra judicial form of self-help,” he wrote.

Residents’ complaints about the light culminated in the town of Winchester passing in 2011 an ordinance requiring outside lights avoid shining into neighboring properties. It also prohibited lights on residences to be visible from more than 50 feet away. The ordinance went into effect in January 2012. Each day the ordinance was violated would result in a $25 fine.

The town cited the Stilsons several times over the next few years, and in 2014 took them to court, seeking $1,300 in fines for violating the ordinance for 52 days. The couple paid the town $1,250 based on a settlement agreement that later fell through.

In the end, the trial court found the couple owed $1,925 in fines minus the $1,250 the couple paid, bringing the total outstanding fines to $675 plus $6,603 in the town’s attorneys fees and costs.

On appeal, the Stilsons had argued, among other things, that the payment to the city should have barred the case from going to trial because it satisfied the terms of the settlement agreement. It also argued that the lighting ordinance was unconstitutional because it did not provide notice of what types of lighting it prohibited.

But Judge Hruz was not persuaded by the Stilsons’ arguments and affirmed the circuit court’s decision. Hruz found no valid settlement agreement had been made. Moreover, he held Tuesday that the Stilsons’ constitutional challenge of the ordinance failed because they did not show there was no possible constitutional interpretation of the statute. That showing is required when challenging whether a regulation is lawful. Follow @erikastrebel