Owner Fights HOA Over Right to Bring Personal Trainer to Association Fitness Center

This case involved a dispute between a homeowner (“Owner”) and its homeowners association (“Association”) over Owner’s right to bring a personal fitness trainer into the Association’s fitness center for the purpose of training Owner in consideration of payment for the trainer’s services. The issue over Owner’s right to bring the personal trainer into the fitness center came up after Association entered into an exclusive arrangement with a third-party vendor to provide fitness services in Association’s fitness center and then enacted a new rule that prohibited private trainers, instructors, physical therapists, and massage therapists from working in the fitness center. Owner then filed the action against Association alleging that Association’s adoption of the rule prohibiting private trainers in the fitness center violated Owner’s rights under Association’s Declaration. In defense of the lawsuit, Association contended that Owner’s personal trainer was a “licensee” who could be excluded from Association’s property based on the new rule.

Association’s Declaration contains language that states that Association’s property is available for the use of “owners, family members, guests, invitees, and tenants in accordance with Association’s Declaration. The Declaration also provides:

OWNERS’ EASEMENTS OF ENJOYMENT: Every Owner and family member, guest, tenant, agent, or invitee of an Owner shall, except as may otherwise be provided in this Declaration, have a permanent and perpetual nonexclusive easement for ingress and egress over, enjoyment in, and use of Association Property within the Property (except as otherwise may be provided elsewhere in this Declaration), in common with all other Owners, their family members, guests, tenants, agents, and invitees, which easement shall be appurtenant to, and shall pass with deed and/or title to each Owner’s Lot. This right shall be subject to the following limitations: