My Pet Chickens

A next-door-neighbors dispute in the Sleepy Hollow subdivision led the North Carolina Court of Appeals to conclude that four chickens were household pets

“The issue is, what is chicken?” This is the opening line in Frigaliment Importing Co. v. B. N. S. Int’l Sales Corp., 190 F. Supp. 116, 117 (S.D.N.Y 1960), a case studied by most law students when learning about principles of interpreting contract provisions. This present appeal involves the fate of four chickens and whether their presence in a residential planned community violates the private restrictive covenants governing that community.

I must have skipped that class

Turning to the 1998 covenant, we conclude that the keeping of poultry is clearly forbidden by the covenant’s first clause, as chickens are “poultry.” However, we must determine whether the covenant’s second clause could reasonably be construed to allow poultry if kept as “household pets.” We conclude that it does: While the first clause forbids the keeping of any “animals,” the second clause clearly allows the keeping of animals, so long as they are “household pets” and otherwise not used for a commercial purpose. In the same way, where the first clause forbids the keeping of “poultry,” the second clause could be reasonably read to allow poultry—which, we note, are animals—kept as “household pets” and otherwise not kept for any commercial purpose.

The court found a precedent involving Nigerian Dwarf goats persuasive.

But a remand on the effectiveness of later covenant amendments

We are not holding that the 2020 covenant is invalid. It may be that the covenant was voted on at a meeting. On remand, Defendants are free to move the trial court for leave to amend their answer to assert the 2020 amendment as a defense. However, the recorded document that was before the trial court and that is in our record states that the document was adopted by “written agreement.” Accordingly, we cannot say that the trial court abused its discretion in denying Defendants’ motion based on the 2020 amendment.

(Mike Frisch)