A veteran who refused to pay a fine for the U.S. flag on his porch had to sell his home to pay the legal bill to fight it.
Shortly after slicing open the letter from his condo association, Larry Murphree was seeing red.
People doing routine neighborhood checks for the Tides Condominium Association had taken notice of the “unauthorized object” on his front porch and demanded that he remove it. If he didn’t, the letter warned, he’d be fined $100 every day.
But the “unauthorized object” in question was a 17-inch American flag that he had placed in a flower pot. And Murphree, who says he spent half a dozen years as an air traffic controller in the Air Force, wasn’t budging.
While reading the letter Murphree said, “I lost it, it just dawned on me there are 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.”
Thus began a seven-year legal ordeal that cost Murphree several hundred thousand dollars he had squirreled away to live in the retirement community in Sweetwater, Florida and three years ago, it cost him his house.
He sold his home in the wake of mounting fees and a lien placed on it by the condominium association.
He’s now suing the condo association for one million dollars.
In the meantime, he’s moved into another community that places its own flags along the main drag on some national holidays. And it doesn’t restrict flags on personal property.