Maine’s highest court heard arguments Thursday from a Tremont couple who say they are entitled to a jury trial after being fined more than $230,000 for an alleged unpermitted junkyard.
The couple are appealing a lower court’s ruling that they were not entitled to a jury trial because the six-figure civil penalty they faced, which represents more than six years of daily violations, were secondary to the town’s request for abatement.
The hearing was the latest in a yearslong municipal code enforcement dispute between Tremont officials and two former town residents, Robert and Judy Cousins, over what lower courts have deemed a junkyard. The pair have maintained that their property was an “aborted construction site.”
In December 2024, the Cousinses were ordered in Hancock County Superior Court to pay $231,100 in civil penalties for operating a junkyard without a permit and causing a public nuisance. The couple, who have since moved to Alaska, have appealed that decision through their pro-bono attorney, Andrew Lizotte.
Lizotte, an assistant U.S. attorney, was nominated last month by Gov. Janet Mills to be a state district court judge.
The appellants’ case centered around two errors Lizotte claims the lower court made: misinterpreting what constitutes a junkyard, and denying the Cousinses’ repeated requests for a jury trial.
The justices quickly dismissed Lizotte’s first argument — that the property wasn’t a junkyard because the Cousinses weren’t operating business — as state law does not require a junkyard to qualify as a business.
The majority of the hearing involved the Cousinses’ right to a jury trial. Lizotte argued that his clients should have been granted a jury trial because the town was seeking substantial damages.
Lizotte declined to comment when reached after the hearing by the Bangor Daily News.
The town’s attorney, Grady Burns, reasoned that the town denied the Cousinses a jury trial because the town’s primary concern was abating the violations. The penalties were secondary, Burns said.
“Isn’t that why we have juries?” Associate Justice Catherine Connors said. “Isn’t that why we had a jury problem in 1789? Because the government was coercing people and the juries were saying, ‘No you can’t do that,’ and that’s why we had a revolution?”
Large civil penalty cases usually warrant a jury trial. However, that right isn’t guaranteed when equitable relief — like an injunction — is sought and penalties are only incidental. This was the case for the Cousinses, Burns said.
They were fined $100 per day for the violation for 2,311 days, starting in September 2018 and ending with the December 2024 lower court ruling.
“As a municipal attorney, I will say the existence of these daily penalties is a strong incentive for any violator to seek a reasonable settlement agreement and to voluntarily abate these violations,” Burns said.
Burns did not respond after the hearing to inquiries from the Bangor Daily News.
If the justices rule in favor of the appellants and consider changing past precedent around jury trials, Burns said, it would balloon the number of such trials across the state and the cost of prosecuting code violations.
The dispute — which Lizotte described to the justices as “incredibly contentious” — began after a 2013 fire burned down the Cousinses’ Bass Harbor restaurant, Cap’n Nemo’s. The couple tried rebuilding after the fire but received a stop work order in 2015 because of code violations involving the new foundation, according to court documents.
The site began accumulating materials after that, leading a Tremont code enforcement officer to cite the couple for an unpermitted junkyard three years later.