Voyager Village Property Owners Ass'n v. Johnson, 79-1713
| Decision Date | 03 June 1980 |
| Docket Number | No. 79-1713,79-1713 |
| Citation | 97 Wis.2d 747,295 N.W.2d 14 |
| Parties | VOYAGER VILLAGE PROPERTY OWNERS ASSOCIATION, a corporation, Respondent, v. Andrew JOHNSON, Betty Johnson, Robert Schwinghammer and Theresa A.Schwinghammer, Appellants. |
| Court | Wisconsin Court of Appeals |
Gerald N. Gust and Cwayna, Novitzke, Byrnes, Gust & Williams, Amery, for appellants.
George W. Benson and Benson & Taylor, Siren, for respondent.
Before DONLIN, P. J., and FOLEY and DEAN, JJ.
The defendants are owners of lots in the Voyager Village Recreation Area. They purchased these lots for the purpose of camping on weekends and planned to leave their travel trailers parked on their lots during the week as well as on the weekends. The Voyager Village Property Owners Association sought to enforce restrictive covenants in the defendants' deeds, which disallowed leaving camping equipment that is not in use on the lots. The trial court ruled that the covenants applied and enjoined the defendants from parking unoccupied travel trailers on their lots. We conclude that neither the term "camping equipment" nor the term "in use" is ambiguous and that the covenants do apply here, and we therefore affirm.
This case was submitted on stipulated facts, and the trial court had only to apply the law to these facts. On appeal, we independently review the law without special deference to the trial court's conclusions. First National Leasing Corporation v. City of Madison, 81 Wis.2d 205, 260 N.W.2d 251 (1977).
The defendants argue that restrictive covenants are not favored in the law and must be strictly construed in favor of the free use of land. While this is true, restrictions will be enforced where the intention of the parties is clearly shown in the covenants. Construction is only necessary when the covenants are ambiguous. State ex rel. Bollenbeck v. Village of Shorewood Hills, 237 Wis. 501, 297 N.W. 568 (1941). In this case, there is no ambiguity.
The defendants' first contention is that their travel trailers are not camping equipment. The restrictive covenant in question allowed a lot owner to use the lot for camping for five years before building a permanent residence as long as the owner did not leave the camping equipment on the lot when not in use. Under these terms, living in anything other than a permanent residence would be camping. Any equipment used to live in that manner would then be camping equipment. Camping equipment would, therefore, obviously include travel trailers.
The purpose of the covenant was apparently to require the erection of permanent homes, but to still allow people to purchase lots and use them for camping for a brief period before the erection of a permanent home. The requirement that...
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