Famed Federal Judge Jack Weinstein Makes Onsite Visit, Seeks to Resolve Neighbors' Property Squabble
A renowned federal judge who formerly served as the chief of the U.S. District Court in Brooklyn has presided over some of the biggest mass torts in the country, not to mention mob trials and other high-profile cases.
Now senior U.S. District Judge Jack Weinstein is trying to work his magic on a contentious residential property dispute in the Midwood neighborhood. He toured the site yesterday, where neighbors are locked into adversarial positions about the ownership of a three-foot-wide strip of land and the removal of a fence, a bush and a tree, accompanied by marshals, interns, lawyers and the parties in the case, according to the New York Daily News and the New York Post.
“This is a neighborly dispute which has been transmogrified into a big federal case,” the 89-year-old judge noted before visiting the property. “Thank you for bringing me an interesting case.”
If the litigants can’t reach a settlement in the next few weeks, a jury will have to decide who must pay whom, and how much.
