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Louisiana Court Ends Neighbor Land Feud With $15K Award

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A Louisiana appeals court upheld a $15,000 award and boundary ruling after neighbors clashed over a 70-foot timber strip, lights, generators and a dead cow.

A Louisiana appeals court has settled a bitter neighbor feud in Union Parish, ruling that the true property line between two families sits at an old fallen wire fence and ordering the couple who sparked the fight to pay $15,000 in damages. The Louisiana Second Circuit Court of Appeal issued its decision on January 14, 2026, backing an earlier district court judgment.

The case pitted Jesse Justin Colvin and his wife, Ruby Sue Hill Colvin, against their neighbors, Robert Bradford Jones and Roni Michelle Reppond Jones. Under the ruling in consolidated docket numbers 56,654-CA and 56,655-CA, each Colvin must pay $7,500 to the Joneses. The court also permanently barred the couple from causing any further trouble along the shared boundary.

The two properties lie near Farmerville. Jesse and Ruby Colvin purchased a 23-acre tract along Highway 828 on July 12, 2012, and built their main home there. On March 25, 2014, Robert and Roni Jones bought an adjoining one-acre lot on Linville Fire Tower Road. For over a decade, the couples got along as friends.

That goodwill collapsed over a 70-foot-deep band of trees and brush between the two lots. The Colvins insisted the strip fell entirely within their northern line, pointing to surveys done in 1989 and 2012. The Joneses countered that the genuine historic edge ran along an old combination wire fence set farther south.

Signs, lights and a rotting carcass

As the Joneses pressed their claim to the wooded ground, the Colvins posted "NO TRESPASSING" signs along the surveyed line, then swapped them for larger ones. The confrontation grew steadily uglier. The Colvins strung orange construction fencing across the contested area and pointed high-intensity lights toward the Joneses' home, including their backyard.

They also ran noisy power generators through the night, from dusk until dawn, and left a dead cow beside the survey marker close to the boundary. The trial court later concluded that these acts served no genuine purpose and badly disrupted the Joneses' ability to live peacefully at home.

The litigation opened on September 8, 2023, when the Colvins sued in the Third Judicial District Court for the Parish of Union, asking a judge to fix the boundary. The Joneses filed their own demands, seeking a permanent injunction and monetary compensation. They accused the Colvins of repeated intimidation that interfered with the use of their property.

Judge sides with the Joneses

After a bench trial, District Judge Monique Babin Clement ruled for the Joneses. She placed the legal line at the old combination fence rather than the newer surveyed line, and ordered the Colvins to strip away the signs, posts, lights and flagging materials. She held Jesse Colvin liable for $7,500 to each neighbor, totaling $15,000.

The Colvins took the matter to the Second Circuit, challenging the boundary finding, the injunction and the damages. A three-judge panel of Judges Hunter, Marcotte and Ellender turned aside every argument and affirmed the lower court.

The panel explained that pinpointing a contested boundary is a question of fact. Under Louisiana Civil Code Article 786, a line may be established through evidence of long possession when ownership cannot otherwise be proven. Testimony showed that earlier owners of the Colvin tract had long treated the old wire fence as the working border.

Jesse Colvin himself conceded under questioning that he had never set foot in the disputed northern area before the fight began. He had never grazed livestock or felled trees there, and said he ordered the 2022 survey because he did not know where his line lay. He also acknowledged that his grandchildren drove steel posts along the surveyed line. The court found no error in resting the boundary on the physical evidence and history of use.

Damages stand on appeal

The Second Circuit likewise upheld the $15,000 award and the permanent injunction, finding the trial record amply supported the judge's conclusions about the Colvins' behavior. That record covered the oversized signs, the carcass, the construction fencing, the glaring lights and the droning generators aimed at the Joneses' home.

The Colvins argued the Joneses had endured nothing worse than a minor nuisance, with no medical, physical or financial harm. The judges rejected that view. Louisiana law weighs whether an activity inflicts real harm or merely a small annoyance, considering the neighborhood's character, the degree of intrusion and the impact on health and safety. Lasting distress, broken sleep, anxiety and lost enjoyment of one's property, the court held, can qualify as genuine damage. It found no abuse of discretion in the award and no flaw in the injunction.

Louisiana property dispute, Union Parish boundary case, Second Circuit Court of Appeal, neighbor harassment lawsuit, timberland property line, Farmerville Louisiana, $15,000 damages ruling, Louisiana Civil Code Article 786

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