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August 09, 2005
Stars in the war of the roses
By ADAM NICHOLS
New York Daily News
It was "The West Wing" that made him famous, but it's the north border of his backyard that has put Bradley Whitford at the center of a war of the roses.
The actor, who plays Josh Lyman on the NBC hit show, has been slapped with a lawsuit that claims he relandscaped his elderly neighbor's garden while she nursed her dying husband in the hospital.
The work began after Whitford had his property surveyed in 1998 and found a 5-foot-wide strip of land, previously considered to belong to Nancy Simpson, was legally his. The lawsuit said Simpson wasn't told about the survey.
Simpson contends that while she was busy tending to her husband, Whitford had his workers rip out her roses and fences, redirect sewage pipes and plant trees that block the sunlight.
She said all this was done although the workers never had permission to be on her land.
"The conduct of Whitford ... was willful, spiteful, intentional, malicious, despicable, fraudulent and oppressive towards Mrs. Simpson," said the lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles, where the feuding neighbors live.
"As Dr. Simpson was dying in the hospital, Mr. Whitford came onto the Simpson property without any permission ... and removed ... a 6-foot-tall chain-link fence," the suit said. "Climbing roses had become attached to the removed chain link fence. Some were damaged and others destroyed by Whitford."
The complaint is also leveled against Whitford's wife, "Malcolm in the Middle" star Jane Kaczmarek.
"We believe this is a baseless and malicious lawsuit and an unfortunate waste of the court's time," a spokesman for Whitford and Kaczmarek said.
According to the suit, Whitford:
Ripped down a wooden fence, trampled plants and fenced off land Simpson thought was hers.
Dug up a sewer line and reinstalled it in a different position.
Installed fake-stone facing on a wall belonging to Simpson, and put in other landscaping. The lawsuit claims he called her property "ugly."
Planted 21 trees alongside a stretch of the boundary. They are now up to 16 feet tall.
Put in 14 trees along another stretch. Now 11 feet tall, they block the sunlight on Simpson's property, she claims.
The lawsuit said the actions were "so utterly intolerable as to go beyond all reasonable bounds of decency in a civilized community."
Simpson is seeking an unspecified amount of damages.
Originally published on August 7, 2005
Posted by Jo at August 9, 2005 07:00 PM