Play set lawsuit is a costly lost cause

A couple's fight with a homeowners' association to keep

the backyard set is costing over $50,000, they say.

Courtesy of St. Petersburg Times

NEW PORT RICHEY - Kayla and Alden Johnson's $5,500 backyard play set once was a hit with their young friends.

It has become a $50,000-plus hit on their parents' bank account.

Lynn and Thomas Johnson recently agreed to end a three-year legal fight over the play set. They called the elaborate wooden structure, complete with a playhouse, swings and green twirling slide, a special birthday and Christmas present for their children in 2002.

The Gulf Harbors Woodlands homeowners association called it a deed restriction violation and sued the couple in March 2003.

The association won. The Johnsons lost.

Big time, actually, if you want to talk money.

Based on an agreement signed by both sides' lawyers April 4, the Johnsons must pay the association $16,000 for its legal fees. The money is due Thursday.

Add that to the costs of the Johnsons' own trial and appellate attorneys, and Lynn Johnson figures the couple's total legal bill is "well in excess of $50,000."

But the 39-year-old part-time homemaker, part-time real estate agent isn't particularly upset over losing so many greenbacks. She's more perturbed that the play set must come down this week to comply with the settlement.

"We were wronged in the whole situation," she said Monday. "You can't tell me what I can do with my back yard."

Circuit Judge W. Lowell Bray agreed with the association in April 2005 that the Johnsons should dismantle the enclosed, roofed structure attached to the swing set because it constituted an "outbuilding" prohibited by the community's deed restrictions.

The couple countered that they were given a verbal go-ahead by the association to erect the structure as part of an allowable swing set. They also argued that the deed restrictions were expired and selectively enforced.

Thomas Johnson, 47, who is a senior account representative for a communications company, and Lynn Johnson, who was a comptroller for a multimillion dollar company when the lawsuit began, refused to modify the play set for safety reasons.

The 2nd District Court of Appeal affirmed Bray's decision this year, Lynn Johnson said.

Kayla, now 8, was ready to battle on to the Florida Supreme Court. But Lynn Johnson said back to back defeats took a toll emotionally as much as financially. At the advice of their attorney, Paul Rebein, the Johnsons decided they needed to move on.

They will dismantle the play set Thursday and donate it to an orphanage run by the Children's Home Society in Sebring, Lynn Johnson said.

She wants other children to be able to enjoy it even if Kayla and 5-year-old Alden cannot.

"We hung in there as long as we could to fight for our children's rights," she sighed. "Life's not fair. Get up, shake the dust off and get on with your life."