KITTERY, Maine — A lawyer for an Admiralty Village resident has threatened a lawsuit against the town due to the noise from nearby daytime pickleball play at Emery Field.
Addressed to Town Manager Kendra Amaral, Portland attorney Jeffrey Shafto wrote last month that his client is a night shift staffer in the Exeter Hospital emergency room, has been “unable to sleep soundly” and “is chronically fatigued during (the) majority of the year” due to noise from the town-installed courts.
“She has sought medical care for the stress and health impacts of sleep deprivation caused by the Emery Field pickleball courts,” Shafto said on behalf of his client. “Additionally, (the resident) regularly contends with pickleballs coming over the fence and onto her property, as well as players entering her property to retrieve balls or knocking on her door to request or do the same. These individuals have caused damage to her property, including breaking the gate she has on her fence.”
The resident has notified the town in the past about the actions of those utilizing the pickleball courts.
Shafto alleges the resident has attempted to mitigate noise from the courts by reorganizing her home, purchasing white noise machines and installing new windows. “The present situation is untenable,” Shafto said.
The attorney urged the Town Council to undertake efforts to quiet the courts during the daytime hours, or else face litigation.
“The Kittery Town Council must either take serious measures to address the noise pollution created by these pickleball courts or must close or convert the courts to some other recreational purpose,” Shafto wrote on July 11. “Please contact my office within 30 days of the date of this letter to discuss possible solutions to this situation. It is not my client’s desire to bring a lawsuit against the town, but if her concerns continue to be ignored, she will have no choice but to proceed with that option.”
Members of the Town Council discussed the resident’s experiences and the lawyer’s letter at the group’s meeting Monday evening.
The town has installed fabric barriers across the fencing for the adjoining courts to mitigate the noise coming from pickleball games and planted arborvitae along the property owner’s fence line, according to Amaral. The town is additionally looking to add new, quieter pickleball equipment to its “lending library” for players, she stated.
Council chairperson Judy Spiller suggested the town potentially could enforce a policy that pickleball players must use quieter balls at the courts.
“If there are quieter pickleballs that are available to use, then I would really support (and feel) we should at least look into requiring that,” Councilor Mary Gibbons Stevens said in support of the idea. “I think we just make it a thing, we enforce it and just say that this is one of the rules of using the pickleball court. It won’t be perfect, but I think it’s worth it if that’s such a thing.”
“I would have to check and see if that would even hold legal muster,” Amaral said to Spiller.
Councilor Cyrus Clark sided with the resident.
“I think I really feel their pain. I think we made a mistake putting the pickleball court there,” he said. “I think the only resolution is for it to no longer be a pickleball court. That’s how I feel about that.”
Shafto’s letter states his client “has a right to the quiet enjoyment of her property, and Kittery has an ordinance against disturbing the peace.” Per town code , however, the ordinance pertains to “a pet, hen, or rooster which creates a nuisance by continued or repeated barking, howling, yelping, or making of other loud or unusual noises for a half hour or intermittently for two hours, and can be heard at or beyond the boundary of the property on which the animal is located.”
The comment caught the attention of Stephen Langsdorf, an attorney for the town, who squashed the claim of an ordinance violation as “inapplicable” in a July 30 response to Shafto.
“The ordinance applies only to animal noises,” Langsdorf responded. “There are no Kittery ordinances which provide the basis for the claim your letter threatens.”
The Maine Torts Claims Act “creates a specific immunity for municipalities protecting them against cases of this nature,” Langsdorf added.
The language of the law states that a “governmental entity is not liable for any claim which results from … land, buildings, structures, facilities or equipment designed primarily for use by the public in connection with public outdoor recreation,” which Langsdorf cited.
“It is unfortunate that the noise from the pickleball courts adjacent to your client’s house is adversely affecting her despite efforts to mitigate,” Langsdorf wrote to Shafto.
The Portland attorney further alleged that the town did not research possible impacts the pickleball courts would have on adjacent homeowners and removed trees from "the narrow strip of land" between his client's property and where the spot the courts were placed.
The pickleball courts were added at Emery Field by the town as part of a phased project, along with basketball courts and a walking path. The parcel is the former site of the town’s recreation department building.
This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Nurse who works nights threatens to sue Kittery over pickleball noise at Emery Field
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