The Maine Superior Court has confirmed an arbitration award ordering the operators of Two Coves Farm in Harpswell to vacate the farm and pay about $124,000 in back rent to the property owner.
The farmers, Laura and Joe Grady, had appealed the arbitrator’s ruling, arguing that he lacked statutory authority to evict them from their primary residence of the past 16 years.
In a Feb. 4 ruling, Justice Darcie N. McElwee denied their appeal and confirmed the arbitration award. The brief ruling does not explain the court’s reasoning or directly address the farmers’ arguments.
A dispute about rent, productivity and other issues led to the arbitrator’s decision in October. It ordered the Gradys to vacate the farm, on Harpswell Neck, by the end of 2025.
The arbitrator said the Gradys underpaid rent by more than $124,000 over several years and failed to meet lease requirements related to active farming. Still, he found no evidence of intentional wrongdoing.
In an appeal filed Dec. 30, the Gradys asked the court to vacate the decision and issue a stay of eviction that would allow them to continue living on the farm. Their appeal argued that the arbitrator, Timothy J. Bryant, overstepped his authority by ordering them to leave the property.
The Gradys contended that, because the farm was also their home, state law prohibited them from being evicted without a judge’s order. They argued that all residential evictions in Maine require a judicial process and can’t be done through arbitration.
Farm owner Neils Point LLC, owned by local resident Helen Norton, filed a response to the appeal on Jan. 15. It said the arbitrator acted within his authority and followed applicable law. The filing emphasized that the Gradys had voluntarily agreed to arbitration as the method for resolving disputes under their lease.
Norton’s attorney, Alfred C. Frawley IV, of the Portland law firm McCloskey, Mina, Cunniff & Frawley LLC, welcomed the judge’s ruling.
“Mrs. Norton is pleased with the outcome before the Superior Court and is actively recruiting a new tenant to operate the farm in accordance with the agricultural easement she and her late husband granted to the Maine Farmland Trust and the Harpswell Heritage Land Trust,” he said in an email.
Frawley noted that the Gradys had not yet left the farm as of Tuesday, Feb. 24, but he did not provide any further details. The Gradys didn’t respond to a request for comment on the court’s ruling and their future plans.
Two Coves Farm is a rare example of commercial-scale agriculture in Harpswell. Norton, a Harpswell Neck philanthropist who also owns the Harpswell Schoolhouse restaurant, bought the farm with her late husband in 2006 to protect it from development. The Gradys first leased the property in 2009 and signed a second lease, for 25 years, in 2017.
Norton and the Gradys have offered differing accounts of what led to their dispute. Norton has accused the Gradys of underpaying rent and violating the terms of their lease.
The Gradys have said the conflict arose from a dispute about the role of an employee of Norton’s in the farm’s day-to-day operations, and a disagreement about how rent should be calculated.
The Gradys’ appeal took issue with the arbitrator’s conclusion that the 25-year lease signed in 2017 required them to actively grow crops. They said the lease contained no such requirement, and that Bryant had merely inferred it from general language about maintaining a productive farm.
The Gradys said the farm had remained productive under their stewardship. They pointed to extensive livestock rotations, pasture-based egg and meat production, haymaking and other work at the farm.
But Norton’s response said the arbitrator reasonably interpreted the lease as a whole and acted within his authority. It said the arbitrator’s findings were supported by the record and asked the court to deny the Gradys’ appeal and confirm the arbitration decision in full.
