Silver Blue Lake Apartments, Inc. v. Silver Blue Lake Home Owners Ass'n

• Decision Date: 29 July 1969
• Docket Number: No. 68--1102,68--1102
• Citation: 225 So.2d 557
• Parties: SILVER BLUE LAKE APARTMENTS, INC., a Florida corporation, John Leisenring, Harold M. Diamond and Bernard Sandel, Appellants, v. SILVER BLUE LAKE HOME OWNERS ASSOCIATION, INC., a corporation not for profit existing under the laws of the State of Florida, William M. DeLisa and Harris J. Buchbinder, Appellees.
• Court: Florida District Court of Appeals

Page 557

225 So.2d 557

1970 A.M.C. 956

SILVER BLUE LAKE APARTMENTS, INC., a Florida corporation, John Leisenring, Harold M. Diamond and Bernard Sandel, Appellants, v. SILVER BLUE LAKE HOME OWNERS ASSOCIATION, INC., a corporation not for profit existing under the laws of the State of Florida, William M. DeLisa and Harris J. Buchbinder, Appellees.

No. 68--1102.

District Court of Appeal of Florida, Third District.

July 29, 1969.

Rehearing Denied Sept. 2, 1969.

Kastenbaum, Mamber, Gopman, Epstein & Miles, Miami Beach, Horton & Schwartz, Miami, for appellants.

Shutts & Bowen and Thomas H. Anderson and Karl Vance Hart, Homer Q. Kimbrell, Miami, for appellees.

Before PEARSON, C.J., and HENDRY and SWANN, JJ.

PER CURIAM.

Appellant Silver Blue Lake Apartments, Inc., owns land which borders upon an 80-acre man-made lake. Several hundred apartment units owned by appellant are situated on this land. Appellant's property line extends a few feet into the lake. Individual appellants Harold M. Diamond and Bernard Sandel are officers of the appellant corporation. Individual appellant John Leisenring is a tenant in an apartment unit owned by the corporate appellant. They appeal from a final judgment entered in an action by Silver Blue Lake Homeowners Association, Inc., and individual owners of underlying land. The complaint sought to enjoin the allegedly unreasonable use of the surface of the lake by the tenants of Silver Blue Lake Apartments, Inc. ¹

The final judgment ordered generally that only owners of a portion of the lake bed would be entitled to use the lake and specifically that the tenants of Silver Blue Lake Apartments, Inc., were not entitled to such use. We agree with this ruling and affirm the judgment appealed from. We think this holding is consistent with the holdings in Duval v. Thompson, Fla.1959, 114 So.2d 791; Florio v. State ex rel. Epperson, Fla.App.1960, 119 So.2d 305, 80 A.L.R.2d 1117. The trial court made the following findings of fact:

'* * * Silver Blue Lake is located in Dade County and is a man-made non-navigable lake which resulted from the excavation of limerock for a number of years. It is a relatively small lake covering only approximately 80 acres. Some ten years or more ago the northern half of the lake was platted into two water-front subdivisions for single family dwellings with each home owner's property extending into the water. Apparently the individual home owners have used the entire lake since that time and their children often swim in the lake close to shore. For a period in excess of ten years a portion of the lake owned by an Optimist Club has been used as a Boy's Club with a Club House and supervised instruction in sailing, swimming and water safety for young boys. Approximately three years before this suit was filed, the Defendant, SILVER BLUE LAKES APARTMENTS, INC. purchased a tract of land bordering on a small portion of the southern boundary of the lake and extending eight or ten feet into the lake. The corporation then as now is composed of three stockholders and officers. Thereafter, the corporate Defendant began construction of a large apartment complex on the purchased lands. For some period of time it has had several hundred rental units in operation and at the time of trial it had a substantial number of additional units under construction. In addition, Defendant owns additional vacant land which, it is only reasonable to assume, will be used for construction of future rental units. Some seven or eight years ago the individuals owning homes on Silver Blue Lake formed the Silver Blue Lake Home Owners Association, Inc. Title to the bulk of the lake bed was conveyed to the ASSOCIATION, as discussed below. Membership in the ASSOCIATION by its By-Laws is limited to persons owning homes on Silver Blue Lake. The ASSOCIATION adopted rules of safety and patterns for boat traffic on the lake and has continually attempted to police the lake to enforce commonly accepted standards for safety and restrict its use to authorized persons. In this it has been joined by and has received the co-operation of, nearly all the property owners other than the APARTMENTS, INC. When APARTMENTS, INC. began operations and continuing to the present day--it advertised that its tenants could have the right to a complete use of the lake. The principals in APARTMENTS, INC. and some of their tenants applied for, and were admitted to membership in the ASSOCIATION. They agreed to abide by the By-Laws and Rules of the ASSOCIATION. However, soon after the apartments opened and continuing to the present time there has been almost continual conflict between the tenants of the apartments and the individual home owners on the lake. APARTMENTS, INC. originally purchased two power boats which they rented to tenants but this practice has been discontinued since the institution of this suit.

'There is abundant evidence to support the argument of the home owners that the conduct of the tenants has interfered with their use of the lake. Persons boating from the APARTMENTS, INC. have failed to follow commonly accepted standards of safety. They have deliberately attempted to swamp boats operated by small children. They have run speedboats with skiers in among small children swimming near shore. They have run power boats late at night. They have followed too close to other water skiers. Many other acts of reckless disregard to the rights of the individual home owners to use the lake could be cited. When police were summoned in an attempt to remove the boats operated by persons from the apartments the officers were assured by counsel for APARTMENTS, INC. that the tenants were legally entitled to use the lake freely. As a result the officers would not remove the tenants of the apartments without some determination of the rights of the tenants to use the lake freely. The officers did remove outsiders who might come on the lake. In addition to the foregoing, one of the principal complaints of the home owners is that the use of the lake by the tenants of the apartments creates such congestion on the lake that others can no longer enjoy boating on the lake in safety. In fact at least one of the home owners testified that his family now usually went elsewhere to go boating because of the congestion and unsafe condition at Silver Blue Lake. The evidence shows that there...