City of Selma v. Jones
City of Selma v. Jones
Opinion of the Court
Appellee filed her bill against appellant to abate a nuisance. The alleged nuisance consisted of a dump pile, created and maintained by the city, near to the premises of complainant. The nuisance is alleged in the fifth and sixth paragraphs of the bill as follows:
“(5) That the said dumping place is not a fit or suitable plant to be established in a residential section of the city; that the plant, as well as the way in which the same is operated, is a nuisance, which is continual, and constantly recurring; that the board of health of Dallas county has declared the said dumping place where located a nuisance, and has requested the city of Selma through her duly authorized officers to abate the same; that the city of Selma, by and through her duly authorized officers, agents, servants, and employés, continues to operate the said dumping plant 'on the said place; that unless the city of Selma, her officers, agents, servants, and employés, are restrained from operating the said dumping place, your complainant will be compelled to inhale and smell air polluted by the noxious odors, *83 vapors, and gases that arise from the opening in the sewer, and from the emptying of the cans of human feces and excreta that has remained closed in said cans for almost a week’s time.
“(6) That complainant’s home has been rendered valueless as a home by the operation of said plant; that it is a place unfit for a human being to reside in as long as the city is permitted to continue to so operate said dumping place on said lots in said residential section of the city of Selma; that the injury to her property as above set forth is of such a nature, and so recurring each day, that she cannot be fully compensated in damages; that under the facts as above set forth she has not an adequate remedy at law; that the city started to operate the said dumping place in the year 1917, and is continuing to operate the same.”
The city demurred to the bill, assigning various grounds, among them being the grounds that the bill showed the defendant to be a municipality, and as such authorized by law to establish and maintain a sanitary system, and that the alleged nuisance was a necessary part of such system, and that that which is authorized by law cannot be a nuisance; that the bill showed complainant to have a plain and adequate remedy at law; that the bill showed a public nuisance, and showed no damages or injury to the complainant, different in kind from that suffered by the public; that to grant the relief prayed would, instead of abating a nuisance, create one, in that it would destroy the sanitary system of the city. The trial court overruled the demurrer, and the respondent appeals.
“Where a county, through a commission created by a local act authorizing a sewer system and purification plant constructed said plant, after contracting with an individual to pay for the cost of the plant and its maintenance, in consideration of the exclusive light to use the products of the plant, the county stipulating for the exclusive control of the purification of the sewerage, and the plant was built and the individuals operated it, and paid the cost thereof directly, but the plant was unequal to the accomplishment of its purpose, and a nuisance was created 'by its operation, in the absence of an express statutory provision, it will not be assumed that it was intended to legalize an act necessarily resulting in a nuisance, nor that the system would have been constructed except for treatment of the sewerage in a purification ¡plant, and hence the proximate cause of the nuisance was not the statutory authorization, but was the operation of the plant by the individual, and consequently he was liable therefor.” 169 Ala. 213, 53 South. 315, 32 L. R. A. (N. S.) 1889.
The following expression, used in the opinion in that case, may be applied to this case:
“Those are joint tort-feasors who contribute to the tort with common intent, * * * not of course the intent to work injury to the plaintiff, but the intent to maintain the purification plant which did result in injury. If it be assumed for a moment that the defendants co-operated with private individuals, as they did with the county and its commissioners, it would seem to be dear that they thereby became liable with those individuals as joint tort-feasors, not because defendants furnished the money with which to build the plant, nor because they contracted to receive the valuable separated constituents of the sewerage, but because they actively participated in the daily operation of the plant.” 169 Ala. 221, 222, 53 South. 318, 32 L. R. A. (N. S.) 889.
A nuisance is thus defined by both the statutes and the decisions in this state:
“Any establishment erected on the premises of the owner, though for the purpose of trade or business lawful in itself, which, from the situation, the inherent qualities of the business, or the manner in which it is conducted, directly causes substantial injury to the property of another, or produces material annoyance and inconvenience to the occupants of adjacent dwellings, rendering them physically uncomfortable, is a -nuisance. In applying this principle, it has been repeatedly held that smoke, offensive odors, noise, or vibrations, when of such degree or extent as to materially interfere with the ordinary comfort of human existence, will constitute a nuisance.” Hundley v. Harrison, 123 Ala. 298, 26 South. 295.
“The jurisdiction of the court to enjoin the erection or the continuance of private nuisances, compelling theitf abatement, at the instance of the party aggrieved, is well established. * * * There is, in the contemplation of the court, a very just. distinction between injuries in their nature temporary and fugitive, and injuries permanent, continuous, constantly recurring. In reference to temporary injuries, the intervention of the court may depend upon the adequacy of legal remedies. But when the injury is permanent, continuous, constantly recurring, there may be a remedy at law, but its inadequacy is obvious. The court of law cannot restore the party complaining to the condition in which he was before the wrong was done, and in which he has the legal right to remain.”
' It was added, referring to the facts of that case:
“Nor, if the right of the complainant is clear —if, as a matter of law, the lands of the defendants are burdened with the servitude claimed— is it essential that, as a condition precedent to the interference of the court, the right should have been established by a verdict and judgment at law. Substantial, actual injury has resulted, and there can be no necessity for sending the party to a court of law, for the determination of a mere legal question, compelling submission to the wrong during the pendency of the action.”
It follows that the trial court properly overruled the demurrer to the bill.
Affirmed.
Reference
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- City of Selma v. Jones.
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