It’s usually interesting to read a story for which you have a personal connection. Especially one that not only makes your blood boil but also makes you think about parallel situations in your work as a forensic accountant.
The story in this case was in today’s Globe and Mail. It told of 92-year-old Craig Morrison’s battle with building inspectors over deficiencies in a house he built for himself and his ailing wife. The house is located near St. Martins, New Brunswick from lumber he and his family cut and milled. He began building the house when he was 88.
Over the next several years building inspectors took him to court six times for alleged deficiencies. These included not using “stamped” (or inspected and graded) lumber. According to the Globe, “a professional home builder, Raymond Debly, volunteered to do an independent inspection. He determined that the house exceeded the requirements of the National Building Code. It was ‘built like a fort.’”
Nonetheless, the building inspectors wanted the Morrisons removed from the house and the house bulldozed. They wanted Craig Morrison found guilty of contempt of court, a finding that would have likely meant a jail term and would have forced his wife into a nursing home. Earlier this month a judge refused, and ruled that Morrison can continue to live in the house for the rest of his life.
My family has a summer home in St. Martins and we know John Morrison, Craig’s son. John runs a local excavation business that operates several gravel pits, runs a small mill, and is developing a subdivision on property overlooking West Quaco.
John tells us that his father could have done a better job of dealing with the building inspectors – that the story isn’t all one-sided. He believes that less confrontation, especially early in the building process, could have resolved many of the issues the inspectors found with the construction. However, he also is adamant that the unstamped lumber used in the house, the method of construction and installation of windows are practices that predate the building code and should be provided for in the code.
It made me think of many of our litigation engagements. They often have similar themes – a dispute that escalated beyond what either party anticipated, and that both parties don’t want to lose.
In this case, one side’s issue became the integrity of the building code and the inspection process, as opposed to finding a way to accommodate an old man’s desire to build a home for he and his wife’s final years. For the other, the issue became one of freedom and the right to be self-sufficient – the right to build a house in the way houses had always been built in rural New Brunswick.
It’s hard to put a dispute back into the box once the sides of the box become so hardened that they can’t fold or bend enough to accommodate the contents.
I plan to use the Morrison story in the future as an allegory for client’s who find themselves embroiled in a head-butting conflict. I’ll share it with legal counsel and mediators and anyone else who tries to help entrenched parties find a common ground before they head to court.
There’ s not always a middle ground in disputes but there very often is. And one thing that anyone involved in heated conflicts knows is that endless disputes can cost endless amounts of money. I’d rather see a fair settlement than have legal or accounting bills run up unnecessarily. Maybe that’s not good business on my part but it’s a good way to live. I think Craig Morrison would agree with me on that.
