The case matters less as a property-line quarrel than as a marker of how far ordinary obstruction can be pushed before it becomes a civil rights violation.
A Massachusetts appeals court has upheld a $3.7 million jury verdict against two neighbours who spent years obstructing a couple's oceanfront house-building project in Dartmouth, according to the Times of India, citing court records. The decision in Reichenbach v. Haydock, dated 29 July 2026, affirmed the damages and a permanent injunction barring further interference. The dispute began in 2008, when Margaret Reichenbach and her husband bought the land, and construction started the following year. The couple received a certificate of occupancy in 2014, but the home was not finished until 2016.
The jury, sitting for 15 days in Superior Court, heard from 19 witnesses and reviewed 181 exhibits, and took a view of the property. It found Timothy Haydock and Susan Moss liable on three counts: violation of the Massachusetts Civil Rights Act, trespass, and intentional interference with contractual relations. Damages were allocated at $1.5 million for the civil rights claim, $200,000 for trespass and $2 million for contract interference. The trial judge then granted a permanent injunction and refused the defendants' requests for a stay, a new trial and other relief.
The civil rights finding is the most consequential. The statute requires interference with a constitutional or statutory right through threats, intimidation or coercion. The appellate court held that the evidence easily met that standard. It noted that Moss stood near the property boundary roughly 300 times during construction, often photographing the work. It also cited a heated altercation between Haydock and the general contractor on the property, an incident in which the couple's painter was forced off the road, and Haydock hiding in bushes while staring at the couple's son, who has a disability. On trespass, a security guard testified to seeing Moss returning to her car from the direction of the property at night, and the court found the defendants offered no evidence of permission beyond existing easements.
On contract interference, the court rejected the argument that a breach was required, relying on a Massachusetts doctrine that covers intentional and improper interference making performance more expensive or burdensome. The project's cost rose from an initial low-end estimate of about $4.2 million to a final $10 million, and the court found the defendants' conduct added at least $2 million. It also dismissed claims that the award was speculative or duplicative, noting that $700,000 covered emotional distress and that the jury had been instructed not to double-count. The injunction, challenged as vague, survived.
The case matters less as a property-line quarrel than as a marker of how far ordinary obstruction can be pushed before it becomes a civil rights violation. Petitions to the conservation commission and the Department of Environmental Protection are lawful; sustained campaigns of harassment and trespass are not. The size of the award signals that courts will treat prolonged interference as a compensable harm rather than a private nuisance. What the report does not establish is whether the defendants will seek further review, how the damages will be collected, or whether the injunction has been tested in practice since it was granted.
