GINA B. GOOD / PVT Amy Maples listens to her attorney while comforting her daughter, Emily, 11, in the lobby of the Pahrump courthouse. The girl was inconsolable after learning her horses can no longer stay at the family's home. Advertisement

Tim and Amy Maples and their daughters, Christina and Emily, have until June 22 to find a place to board their two horses.

On Monday, District Court Judge Robert Lane told Tim Maples unless the family complies with his April 6 decision to remove the horses from their backyard, Tim would be declared in contempt of court and could face "big fines, sanctions or time in jail."

It's been one year since Donald Quinn walked the more than 300 feet from his home on Fawn Street in the Calvada unit B subdivision to meet his neighbor Amy Maples.

Their brief conversation significantly altered the lives of Quinn and the Maples family.

Since Memorial Day 2008, Quinn has spent an undisclosed amount of his retirement nest egg on legal counsel.

"Mr. Quinn told me we had to get rid of our horses in 30 days or he would take us to court," said Maples.

Maples and her husband Tim didn't believe Quinn's ultimatum could be enforced. They were wrong. "Never in a million years did I think I could be sued for having horses on a horse property," said Tim.

Amy, a Walmart employee, has taken time from work for court dates and has walked throughout her subdivision, meeting neighbors and handing out flyers asking for information from others who bought properties in the subdivision in order to have horses.

Tim, who retired after 20-plus years in the military and commutes daily to work in Las Vegas, has also spent time away from work researching Calvada covenants, conditions and restrictions (CC&Rs) and representing his family in court.

Tim said, "This law suit has taken over our lives." However, it's the Maples' children who may be paying the highest price.

On Monday, Christina, 17, was disappointed and frustrated by the legal system that would take her sister's horses away. She was also angry.

"Can't we sue him for having the only yard on the block that is full of weeds?" she asked. "How can he say he smells our horses or has more flies on his property when his own attorney said he never leaves his house. He can't even see our backyard from anyplace on his property."

Eleven-year-old Emily didn't say a word. She just laid her head on her mother's lap and cried. She spends hours each day riding her 30-year-old mare, Passion, and the family's gelding, Tonto. She also participates in Gymkhana events.

The Maples first sought help from a paralegal; however on April 10, Michael C. Neu, a Pahrump attorney, filed court documents for himself and the Las Vegas firm of Stoval & Associates to serve as attorneys of record for the Maples. The same day, he filed an appeal with the Supreme Court of Nevada.

Neu then filed a motion on April 27 to stay enforcement, asking Lane to delay enforcing his decision to have the horses removed until the Supreme Court of Nevada could hear the Maple's appeal.

Quinn's attorney, Charles W. Bennion, of Ellsworth, Moody & Bennion of Las Vegas filed an opposing motion, wanting the horses removed as ruled, thus prompting the June 1 court date.

Lane ruled in favor of removing the horses.

This is Quinn's second successful suit. He also sued his next door neighbor in 2007 and won that case when Lane ruled the property in question was a single family lot and not a residential-agricultural property. The neighbor moved and the home remains vacant.

There are two 165-foot wide lots on each side of the street between the Maples and Quinn homes. One homeowner located between the two residences has a privacy fence that blocks the view of the Maple's backyard from Quinn's property.