We don't know the exact latitude or longitude of the disputed boundary line between state-owned property and the Hallowell home of Andrea Lapointe and Michael Barden. We don't know or understand the finer details of the legal fight between the couple and the state. But we don't have to know any of those things to conclude that the state did the couple wrong when it constructed a seven-foot-tall wooden fence within 10 inches of their clapboard garage.

Now, if the garage needs maintenance, only a mouse could be assigned the job. There's no way a human could slide into the gap between the fence and the garage.

It all started with an argument between the couple and the state about who owned what part of the 19-foot strip of land between their property and nearby state-owned railroad tracks. That escalated into a court battle that is still alive. The most recent judgment was won by the state, which had filed a trespass and nuisance lawsuit against the couple. The couple has appealed that decision.

State officials say they offered a deal to Lapointe and Barden to allow them access to the disputed property for fuel deliveries, maintenance and other occasional uses, but the couple had refused the offer. So the Department of Transportation erected the fence in the course of one December day.

Lapointe and her husband have labeled the structure a "spite fence." We hope it's not that and, instead, the fence is simply a manifestation of an agency moving ahead bureaucratically without exercising good sense. Even though erecting the fence may have been the legal thing to do, we're not sure it was the right thing to do.