Questioning whether a much-quoted literary aphorism can make good law, a state appellate panel has concluded that a property owner and developer cannot use a fence to block his neighbors’ access to the beachfront they have prized for decades.
“The speaker in Robert Frost’s metaphorical poem ‘Mending Walls’ ruminates over his neighbor’s stolid assumption that ‘good fences make good neighbors,’” Justice Dianne T. Renwick (See Profile) observed Tuesday for a unanimous panel of the Appellate Division, First Department, in Gilliland v. Acquafredda Enterprises, 5800.
