Fort Pierce Indus. Park Phases II, III & IV Owners Ass’n v. Shakespeare, 2016 UT 28 (June 22, 2016)

The board of an owners’ association for an industrial park sued some of its members for breach of the governing CC&Rs after they built a cell phone tower on their lot, despite having been denied permission from the board to do so. The district court applied a presumption that restrictive covenants are not favored in the law and are strictly construed in favor of the free and unrestricted use of property, and held that the association did not have the right to limit the number of cell phone towers in the park. Reversing, the Court held that the district court erred in strictly construing the CC&Rs rather than applying neutral principles of contract construction.