Ferriter v. Herlihy

191 N.E. 352, 287 Mass. 138, 1934 Mass. LEXIS 1107
CourtMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
DecidedJune 26, 1934
StatusPublished
Cited by13 cases

This text of 191 N.E. 352 (Ferriter v. Herlihy) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Ferriter v. Herlihy, 191 N.E. 352, 287 Mass. 138, 1934 Mass. LEXIS 1107 (Mass. 1934).

Opinion

Donahue, J.

The plaintiffs and the defendant own adjoining parcels of real estate in the city of Westfield. The plaintiffs with their children have their home in the single house on their land. The defendant lives on the first floor of his house and lets the upper story. He conducts in the basement of his house, which is about twenty-five feet distant from the plaintiffs’ dwelling, a retail milk business in which he now employs eight men and three automobile trucks. When he began business there in 1923 he sold about thirty quarts of milk a day. At the time of the trial he delivered to his customers approximately eleven hundred quarts daily. The establishment in the basement consists of rooms used for washing milk cans and bottles, a room for pasteurizing milk and a cold storage room.

Several grounds for relief stated in the plaintiffs’ bill [140]*140have become of no consequence because of adverse findings of fact by the master. In two respects he found facts which constitute nuisances at common law. Throughout the year, between the hours of 7:30 and 10:30 a.m. daily, milk is brought to the defendant’s premises in large cans by his trucks and four trucks of milk producers; the cans are unloaded on a dirt driveway and cement walk on the defendant’s premises and empty cans are then loaded on the trucks and taken away. The time taken daily in these operations is approximately an hour and a half. They cause considerable noise the extent of which is somewhat dependent upon whether the filled cans are unloaded on, and the empty cans reloaded from, the dirt driveway or the cement walk. The cans are frequently dropped upon and rolled or dragged along the walk. The master appointed in the bill in equity brought by the plaintiffs found that noise of such frequency, character, intensity and duration was thus caused as materially to offend the sensibilities of a person in ordinary condition of health in the situation of the plaintiffs and materially to interfere with the enjoyment of their home and its surroundings. He further found that a degree of care might reasonably be used in unloading and loading the cans upon the trucks which would very materially reduce the volume of such noise, and that, in so far as it was a question of fact, the conduct of the defendant constituted a nuisance.

The milk is delivered to the defendant’s customers in glass bottles. These are placed in wooden crates or cases, brought from the basement and placed on the cement walk. A crate with bottles filled with milk weighs about sixty pounds. The bottles, cans and cases used by the defendant are of a standard type in common use by milk dealers in the vicinity of Westfield. From the concrete walk the crates are lifted on to the trucks. The process of loading consists of placing the crates or cases on the floor of the truck, pushing them along on the floor and then placing on the first tier other crates or cases until the truck is loaded. For about nine months in the year two trucks are loaded with crates or cases each night between midnight and 1 a.m. and [141]*141a third truck about 3 a.m. Each such loading takes fifteen to thirty minutes. In the winter season these loadings are made in the daytime. One of the defendant’s trucks returns and unloads empty bottles about 6 a.m. and the other two later in the morning. The master found that by the noise incident to such loading of the trucks in the early morning hours both plaintiffs were repeatedly awakened when their windows were open and were disturbed so frequently and to such an extent as materially to interfere with their reasonable enjoyment of life and to some extent with their health. He also found that the defendant had not always used reasonable care in the handling of the crates and cases and that the noise from that source could be materially reduced by the use of greater care in such handling. He stated that he was unable to find on the evidence whether the use of such greater care would so reduce the volume of noise as entirely to prevent interference with their reasonable enjoyment of life and with their health.

The master found that the defendant was duly licensed as a milk dealer, had a license to pasteurize milk in his plant and had received permits from the building commissioner of the city to build additions to his milk room, to erect a steam boiler for dairy purposes and for the installation of an oil burner. The terms or conditions of these licenses and permits do not appear in the record.*

The master found the plaintiff Clara E. Ferriter to be nervously affected by the noises above described, that reasonable compensation for the interference with the reasonable enjoyment of her home and surroundings and for the nervous effect on her was $200 and that such compensation for the plaintiff Thomas P. Ferriter, who was materially less affected, was $100.

The final decree enjoined the defendant, his agents, servants, employees and persons bringing dairy products (a) from loading crates or cases of glass bottles or milk containers on trucks on his premises between the hours of 9 p.m. and 7:30 a.m.; (b) from loading or unloading trucks with milk containers, cases or crates between the hours of 7:30 a.m. and 9 p.m. in such manner as to constitute a [142]*142nuisance. The decree also awarded damages to the plaintiffs. The defendant appealed from the final decree.

It is not now contended by the defendant that, on the facts found by the master, the conclusion is not warranted that the conduct of the defendant constituted a nuisance at common law. He states in his brief that “The appeal was taken because the decree is broader than findings of the master will support and the law will allow, and constitutes a violation of the defendant’s rights of property,” and that he here seeks a modification of the decree so that he “will be enjoined from negligent acts only.” The decree which was entered does not contain general prohibitions against the defendant conducting the business of milk dealer under his licenses and permits. It deals with operations on his premises but outside his building which are conducted negligently or with unreasonable disturbances of the rights of the plaintiffs. That portion of the decree which has to do with the loading and unloading of milk containers between the hours of 7:30 a.m. and 9 p.m. by its terms goes not farther than to forbid the carrying on of those operations “in such a manner as to constitute a nuisance.” The past conduct of the defendant in this regard has been negligent: “the care with which such cans are handled is the effective cause of such noise” and it is the noise which constitutes this nuisance. The nuisance is created by the defendant’s negligence and this portion of the decree does no more than accomplish an abatement of the nuisance by requiring the defendant to refrain from negligence.

The decree goes farther in the abatement of the nuisance which the defendant created in the hours of the night; it prohibits any loading of trucks with milk containers on the defendant’s premises between the hours of 9 p.m. and 7:30 a.m. On the facts found by the master, this is no more than a reasonable restriction of the defendant’s conduct of his business. Shea v. National Ice Cream Co. Inc. 280 Mass. 206, and cases cited. The neighborhood except for the defendant’s business is exclusively residential. The noise resulting from these operations conducted at a time [143]*143generally devoted to sleep is of such a character as to interfere with the health of the plaintiffs and their reasonable enjoyment of life.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
191 N.E. 352, 287 Mass. 138, 1934 Mass. LEXIS 1107, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ferriter-v-herlihy-mass-1934.