A Man's Caboose Is Not His Castle

A man's home may be his castle, but if he riles the neighbors, they may have a lot more say about the place than he does. William M. Phillips, feature editor of the Miami Herald, learned that expensive lesson when he decided to install a railroad caboose in his backyard. Phillips' family had outgrown his one-bedroom house, and he needed cheap, additional living space for his three children. What he got was a blizzard of bills that have now hit $10,000 and an endless zoning suit that has become the longest in the history of Florida's Dade County. Even worse, he has now been ordered to get rid of the caboose.

Board v. Board. According to Phillips, his most serious error was that he got only verbal permission for his housing scheme from a zoning official, who now denies everything. When the neighbors yowled that the caboose violated the zoning code ban on any "eyesore or nuisance" in Miami, the local zoning board bucked the complaint to the county zoning department, which offered the suggestion that the caboose be painted green, hidden by shrubs and used only as a playhouse. That pleased neither side, so the case ascended to the zoning board of appeals, which ordered Phillips to remove the caboose within six months. Taking to the courts, Phillips lost one attempt for appeal after another up to the Florida Supreme Court, which refused to hear him on the ground that his lawyer used the wrong legal approach.

By now, the zoning board of appeals had been stripped of its decision-making authority. Phillips started all over again, and twice he got a recommendation for a variance covering the caboose. But the Metro Commission, which governs the county and has the final word, said no each time. Phillips' neighbors finally asked the state attorney to charge him with criminal violation of the zoning code--punishable by a $500 fine and 60 days in jail for each day's violation.

Injunction v. Injunction. Phillips was so mad that he put a $5,200 mortgage on his house to pay for the fight, and went to court again to enjoin the county from haling him into criminal court. Circuit Judge Joe Eaton ruled that the caboose must go and that the county should pay Phillips $975 for his trouble. Neither side liked that decision either, and both appealed. But the district court of appeals upheld the lower court.

Last week, in an effort to settle the whole scrap, the Metro Commission voted to pay Phillips the $975 set by Judge Eaton and accept the injunction that ordered him to remove the caboose. Phillips reluctantly agreed to go along. Looking back on the long fight, he says he would have preferred to be prosecuted in criminal court as a zoning law violator. He feels that then he might have pleaded his case before a jury that would have been more sympathetic than his neighbors.

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