Bizarre legal cases – The neighbor is the German's favorite enemy

"Even the most pious person cannot live in peace if it displeases the wicked neighbor" – Friedrich Schiller.

Germans are particularly litigious when it comes to their neighbors, no matter how trivial the reason may seem. Once the peaceful Christmas season is over, the battle clashes are reignited in many places.

Animal noise pollution

Barking dogs, cats crossing property lines, croaking frogs: often it's not the neighbor themselves, but their animal companions who are the source of the displeasure on the other side of the fence or street. A perennial source of complaints in court is the beloved poultry, or more precisely, the crowing of roosters.

At least the roosters in Lower Saxony have known for 20 years when a hearty "cock-a-doodle-doo" is permitted: Back then, the Oldenburg Regional Court forbade them from crowing between 9 p.m. and 7 a.m. On Sundays and public holidays, clucking was only allowed discreetly in the coop between noon and 2 p.m.

This ruling apparently hasn't reached the roosters of a chicken breeder in the tranquil village of Zitz (population 300) in western Brandenburg. In May 2016, the Brandenburg/Havel District Court had to decide on a long-simmering dispute over rooster crowing. A neighbor had filed a lawsuit, claiming the male birds crowed "too loudly, too often, and too early." The crucial question was: Are breeder N.'s roosters allowed to crow louder than 55 decibels? (This is the limit for daytime noise pollution). Whether the roosters, at such a reduced volume, were still able to make an impression on the flock of hens remains unknown.

The “domestication of man”

When the rooster on the dung heap proudly puffs out his comb and crows powerfully in the morning, he is marking his territory and signaling his readiness to defend it. Men, on the other hand, employ far more modest means of masculine dominance. One of the last bastions is urinating while standing. And that's perfectly legal, ruled Düsseldorf magistrate Stefan Hank: "Despite the (...) domestication of men, urinating while standing is still quite widespread," he stated in response to a lawsuit filed by a tenant whose landlord deducted €2,000 from his security deposit after he moved out because the marble around the toilet had become dull. While someone still practicing this old custom might have to expect considerable arguments, especially with female roommates, the magistrate insisted, they shouldn't have to worry about the marble floor around the toilet being damaged by etching. The landlord refused to accept this, but the plaintiff won his case on appeal – even though this time a female judge presided (!).

Size doesn't matter

A Porsche Cayenne is the dream of many men. But a Munich car enthusiast learned that the powerful vehicle, with its impressive width of 1.93 meters, also has its downsides. He deemed the parking space too small when he terminated his underground garage lease without notice – and without paying – just five days after signing the contract. His landlord disagreed and won. The judge declared the termination invalid and ordered the Porsche driver to pay the outstanding rent. The curious thing is that the size of the parking space ultimately played no role in the verdict. The decisive factor was the tenant's "gross negligence." As the owner of an oversized vehicle, the judge ruled, he should have inspected the premises before signing the lease.

Sources: Haus & Grund Deutschland, dejure.org, jurion.de, Ratgeber Westdeutsche Zeitung, Frankfurter Rundschau, Augsburger Allgemeine.