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janrinok writes:

A story picked up from Ars Technica:

While we’ve heard of consumer drones getting in the way of commercial airliners and obstructing firefighting operations, we've haven't heard of many cases where drones are shot out of the sky by a neighbor.

Eric Joe told Ars he was flying his homemade drone over his parents' orchard in Modesto, California late last year. After just three-and-a-half minutes of flight time, a single shotgun blast rang out from the neighbor's property at the low-flying, slow-moving hexacopter. The drone came crashing down instantly and was damaged beyond repair.

After the neighbor, Brett McBay, declined to cover the costs that he initially was amenable to pay, Joe took McBay to small claims court last month.

"Court finds that Mr. McBay acted unreasonably in having his son shoot the drone down regardless of whether it was over his property or not," the Stanislaus County Court Small Claims Division found.

According to Joe's attorney (and his cousin), Jesse Woo, if McBay doesn't pay within 30 days voluntarily—the end of June 2015—then they can go back to court to try to enforce the judgment.

"If he doesn't pay within 30 days we have to go through court processes to find out what kinds of assets he has and then to get a lien and get a judgement against his assets or wage garnishment," Woo said, adding that he fully intends to collect the money owed.

"We don't believe that the drone was over McBay's property—we maintain that it was briefly over the shared county access road. But even if it did, you're only privileged to use reasonable force in defense of property. Shooting a shotgun at this thing that isn't threatening your property isn't reasonable."