AUGUSTA -- A long-standing dispute over Divided Road on the southeastern edge of Augusta ended in a split jury verdict Wednesday in Kennebec County Superior Court.

Jurors determined that one resident, Gardner S. Stover, must pay $10,000 for damages he caused when he interfered with the plaintiffs' right to use the road, once known as Smith Lane and now more aptly named Divided Lane. The money is to be put into a fund to repair the road.

Justice Joseph Jabar said the neighbors must indicate who they planned to hire to do road repairs and what would be done.

The verdict resolves a civil lawsuit filed in 2006 against Stover by a group of neighbors, Peggy Winchester, Shirlie and Gilberto Ortiz and William Rocque.

In a counter-claim, Stover won $5,000 in damages from Rocque after the jury decided 5-2 that Rocque committed a civil assault against Stover. The jurors also found in a 5-2 decision that Shirlie Ortiz and William Rocque trespassed on Stover's land but caused no harm.

The neighbors claimed Stover interfered with their use of the road by putting first logs and then giant boulders down the middle of the gravel road and later by creating a ditch along the roadway that makes it flood, and then freeze in winter.

The case had a few twists and turns of its own.

Trial started Monday in Kennebec County Superior Court without Stover.

Stover's attorney, Andrews Campbell, told Jabar that Stover, 48, was too ill with bronchitis and a hernia to attend. Stover testified on Tuesday and Wednesday.

A lone female juror was excused shortly after opening statements by Campbell and Judith Plano, an attorney with Pine Tree Legal Assistance who represented the four plaintiffs. The juror told the judge she knew family members of some of the plaintiffs.

Jabar allowed the trial to continue with seven jurors.

In an earlier, non-jury portion of the trial, Justice Donald Marden determined the precise location of the 25-foot-wide right of way in question.

Plano provided a history of the road, which was first built in 1979. She said the property owners all had a right of way to use the road, which connects to Mud Mill Road.

"You're here to decide if damage was done to the right of way owned by my clients," she said in an opening statement. "The defendant has been interfering with that right of way for over 10 years."

She said the neighbors worry that oil trucks, ambulances, medical-supply vehicles and their own private vehicles will be unable to travel the road because of actions taken by Stover.

Plano told jurors that Stover served time in a state prison in Windham for trying to run someone down with his truck in the right of way. Stover was convicted by a jury in 2004 on criminal charges of reckless conduct and driving to endanger. He was acquitted of six other charges.

"The problem with this case, for better or worse, is that the parties couldn't get along," Campbell told jurors. "People using a common road couldn't get along whatsoever."

Stover also has been involved in other civil proceedings, after he was ordered by the City of Augusta to remove 70,000 discarded tires and a number of junk vehicles from his property. He held a junkyard permit until 1987.

Records at the city's Assessor's Office show Stover has two properties on Mud Mill Road and one on Divided Lane.

Betty Adams -- 621-5631

badams@centralmaine.com