An American flag dispute between an Air Force veteran and a Florida condo association has cost the former military man his home, but he hopes to recoup money lost in the running seven-year battle in a new lawsuit, The Washington Post reported.
Larry Murphree has been fighting with the Tides Condominium Association in Sweetwater, Florida, since the organization started fining him $100 per day for a 17-inch American flag he placed in a flower pot in front of his home, the newspaper said.
"I lost it," Murphree said about the letter he received from the association seven years ago, according to the Post. "It just dawned on me there's people that strap on a gun every day to protect me and the people I love. It's a small flag, but it stands for a big thank you."
But the condo association openly rejected attempts to personalize homes in the gated community with neighbors claiming they had been forced to take down Christmas lights and dig up flowers around mailbox that ran afoul of association leaders, the Post said.
Murphree, though, refused to budge on the display of his flag, and neither did the condo association, the newspaper said. After mounting fees and a lien placed on his residence, he sold it three years ago.
The Post said he recently was granted a court date for a civil trial in U.S. district court where he is suing the condo association for $1 million.
"He's probably lost . . . hundreds of thousands of dollars of his retirement money, not to mention the time he'll never get back from having to fight this battle," Murphree's attorney Gust Sarris told the Post.
Sarris said he believed his client had an agreement to display the flag several years ago, but after the agreement, the association changed its flag ordinance to a flower pot ordinance, making flag display illegal again in the organization's eyes, according to First Coast News.
"We believe we have the right to display the American flag, we filed suit in federal court," Sarris told First Coast News. "Somehow they re-categorized it and started doing the same thing again, which was the same flag, the same flower pot, the same dirt and the same plant."
The association has not responded to media requests over Murphree's longstanding dispute over his former residence, but the veteran, living in his new location in St. Augustine, said he hopes the case will go to trial next year, per First Coast News.
"Somebody had to stand up and say, 'this is not right,'" Murphree told the broadcaster.
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