Now I have to watch him. He would’ve let it slide. Bastard.

Strange indeed.

Shortly after moving in someone who lived about 5 houses from ours decided to sell his house by owner and one morning I awoke to see a sign pointing to his house in front of my house. I wasn’t thrilled, but it seemed like he was having an Open House that day and I assumed he’d take the annoying arrow down when it was over. I still found it difficult to understand why he hadn’t bothered with the courtesy of asking first, but I like to be nice to my neighbors… The sign did not come down that day. Nor the next. Nor the next. Nor that week.

I was irritated and told Mrs. Firefly I was going to go to the neighbor’s house with the sign, ask him if he would mind if I put things in his yard without his permission, and then give him a creative suggestion on a new location he could place his sign. Mrs. Firefly thought that would be rude of me and asked me to ignore it. Another week went by. Then another. I told Mrs. Firefly I had had it and I was going to let the guy know how rude he was. She begged me not to say anything so I agreed to write him a polite letter, rather than confront him face to face. Prior to writing the letter I decided to call the city to ensure I was in my right. The lady at City Hall told me that the city owned that land (it was in the easement), and they do not allow such signs under any circumstances and would I please give her my address so the city could send a policeman over to yank the sign off their property. I told her I would handle the situation myself and they needn’t bother.

I wrote the guy a very polite letter saying that if he had asked my wife and I would have gladly let him put his sign on our property on days when he had an open house, as long as he removed it when the open houses were over. I also informed him that the sign was technically on city property and the city does not allow such signs and I had to promise the city I would manage this to avoid them sending over a policeman to write him a fine. A taped the letter to the back of the sign and put the sign in his yard.

A few weeks later I saw the guy and politely approached him and reiterated that my wife and I have no problem with him putting the sign in our yard when he has open houses. The guy went absolutely apesh*t. He started calling me all kinds of names. My kids were nearby so I remained polite. I said, “Let me get this straight? You put a sign in my yard for 3 weeks without asking my permission and you’re yelling at me?” The guy continued to go apesh*t. He is about 20 years older than me and so I calmly (my kids were near) said to him, “Listen Buddy, the way you are speaking to me usually leads to more than conversation, and I’m about this close to forgetting that my wife and kids are nearby and I don’t want them to have to see me do anything to you so I’m going to walk away and I withdraw the offer for you to ever use my yard for any purpose again.”

One of the weirdest things I’d ever seen. Dude put a sign in my yard without asking and I didn’t say a word for three weeks, and then I politely offered to let him do it when he had open houses and the guy treated me like I’d just poisoned his dog. I know exactly how the home owner in this case felt and if that attorney would have said the same to me and my family were not within view I would have followed JohnFN’s suggestion.

This wasn’t two guys arguing politics in a bar. But this guy approached him in his own yard, chastised him for removing junk from his own property. Lets see, you just had your own property littered and your own political opinion spat on, just to have some holier-than-thou ass whip out his business card like your supposed to be impressed and concede all independent thought.

There used to be a thing called respect. Hell, I might have punched him.

And if he chose to defend himself in the heat of the moment, then you might have grounds to argue that. Instead, this lawyer, having had no violence done to him, attempted to bring criminal charges against the man after the fact. Looking at the facts of the incident, I would note it was the lawyer who first approached the property owner. Setting aside the possibility that it was a heated exchange where both men might have gotten in each other’s faces–the lawyer certainly showed a degree of agitation for the outset–waouldn’t the property owner be as justified in bringing the same charges (or even a charge of trespassing) against the lawyer, perhaps feeling threatened by the lawyer’s agitation while he was pulling up the signs on his property?

Why exactly do you feel a need to hit someone when they feel they’ve already been hit?

This question is is asked with the assumption that the lawyer was not being douchebag by attempting to bring charges, which is not an assumption shared by the previous commenters. Having failed to sufficiently justify the premise of his non-douchbaggery, the question is moot.

Is it because Ryan Russman is a lawyer?

Never heard of him before.

I happen to know he has done quite a bit of good for people just like you.

That’s great. Doesn’t change his actions in this case or our opinion of them. If he has done good, then he deserves all due credit, just not in this case.

Let’s see how inclined you are to attack when you need his help.

You seem to not have noticed the great degree of sarcasm in the above comments. And one of of the bloggers on this site, who is a commenter on this thread, is a law professor.