On the fourth day, I took the witness stand. Westfield questioned me for nearly two hours about the period before I left for Portland, my knowledge of the construction, the maintenance plans, and my conversations with Garrett. He asked why I had not discovered the resort sooner. I told him that the eastern shore was screened from my home, that the development had taken place alongside other construction near Mountain Vista, and that I had not anticipated a neighboring HOA building on my private land. He suggested my absence amounted to indifference. I said absence did not transfer ownership.
Then he asked the question the whole case seemed to have been moving toward. "Mr. Whitmore, isn't it true you decided to drain the lake because you wanted to make Mr. Peton's business worthless?" I took a moment before answering. I could have said no and let the attorneys fight over whether the records contradicted me.
Instead, I told the court that discovering the cabins had made the inspection more urgent to me and that I knew the drawdown would affect the resort. But the operation had also been necessary to carry out a genuine assessment of a sixty-two-year-old dam, and it had been planned and supervised accordingly.
Westfield leaned forward. "So you enjoyed watching the cabins lose their value?" I said I had been relieved the unlawful occupation was no longer profitable, but I had not enjoyed seeing the lake empty or the investors suffer. He asked whether I could have sued first and left the water alone.
I said I had spoken to Garrett with my lawyer and presented ownership records before the drawdown began. Garrett had refused removal and promised litigation. I did not pretend there had been no other possible choices, only that I had made a lawful one under circumstances Garrett had helped create.
When David questioned me, he asked about the land's history and why my family had kept the shoreline undeveloped. I talked about my grandfather buying it in 1958, my father maintaining the dam, and the years Helen and I had spent protecting the quiet of the lake. I explained the annual costs and the responsibilities attached to the reservoir. Then David asked whether I had ever granted the HOA permission to construct cabins, sell occupancy interests, or run a commercial resort. Each answer was no.
David held up the photograph of the completed cabins and asked what I had wanted when I first visited Garrett's office. "An explanation," I said. "Then an honest conversation about removing structures that did not belong on my property."
He asked whether Garrett had offered to stop the rentals while title was verified. I said he had not. Instead, he had threatened to fight for as long as necessary because his association had money. The courtroom was quiet enough that I could hear the judge writing.
Closing arguments followed that afternoon. Westfield urged the court to separate ownership from conduct and to hold that no property owner should be allowed to weaponize a reservoir to destroy an established business. He emphasized the scale of economic loss and the vulnerability of individual cabin owners. David acknowledged those losses but argued that they had been created by the HOA's decision to sell and operate structures on land it had never acquired. He asked the judge not to transform a developer's unverified assumption into a permanent burden on the landowner.