Holman v. Athens Empire Laundry Co.

100 S.E. 207, 149 Ga. 345, 6 A.L.R. 1564, 1919 Ga. LEXIS 241
CourtSupreme Court of Georgia
DecidedSeptember 4, 1919
DocketNo. 1058
StatusPublished
Cited by40 cases

This text of 100 S.E. 207 (Holman v. Athens Empire Laundry Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Georgia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Holman v. Athens Empire Laundry Co., 100 S.E. 207, 149 Ga. 345, 6 A.L.R. 1564, 1919 Ga. LEXIS 241 (Ga. 1919).

Opinion

George, J.

(After stating the foregoing facts.)

1. As a general rule a public nuisance gives no right of action to any'individual, but must be abated by process instituted in the name of the State. Civil Code, § 4454. If a public nuisance causes special damage to a private citizen, he has a right of action therefor. Civil Code, § 4485; Trust Company of Georgia v. Ray, 125 Ga. 485, 487 (54 S. E. 145); Savannah, Florida & Western Railway Co. v. Gill, 118 Ga. 737 (45 S. E. 623); Richmond Cotton Oil Co. v. Castellaw, 134 Ga. 472 (67 S. E. 1126). The fact that the plaintiff waived his claim to damages alleged to have been suffered prior to the filing of the suit is of no special consequence. Tate v. Mull, 147 Ga. 195, 197 (93 S. E. 212). If the alleged nuisance be regarded as a public one, the evidence in the case is sufficient to authorize the jury to find special injury and damage to the plaintiff, and, therefore, he may maintain the action. If the alleged nuisance be considered a private one, there can be no question of the plaintiff’s right to sue under section 4456 of the Code, which declares: “A private nuisance may injure either person or property, or both, and in either case a right of action accrues.”

In Bonner v. Wellborn, 7 Ga. 296, 311 (before the code), Judge Nisbet, speaking for the court, said': “A private nuisance is anything done to the hurt or annoyance of the lands, tenements, or hereditaments of another. 3 Blackstone, 170. . . If one does any other act, in itself lawful, which yet being done in that place, necessarily tends to the damage of another’s property, it is also a nuisance.” In Coker v. Birge, 9 Ga. 425, 427, 54 Am. D. 347 [350]*350(before tbe code), Judge Warner said: “Blackstone defines a nuisance to be anything that worketh hurt, inconvenience, or damage. 3 Bl. Com. 215.” Section 4557 of the Civil Code declares: “A nuisance is anything that worketh hurt, inconvenience, or damage to another; and the fact that the act done may otherwise be lawful does not keep it from being a nuisance. The inconvenience complained of must not be fanciful or such as would affect only one of fastidious taste, but it must be such as would affect an ordinary reasonable man.”

3, 4. Theoretically, every person has the natural right to have the air diffused over his premises in its natural state, free from all artificial impurities. Wood on Law of Nuisances (3d ed.), § 495. If this rule were literally applied, its application would seriously disturb business, commerce, and society itself. Hence, by air in its natural state and free from artificial impurities is meant pure air consistent with the locality and nature of the community. Wood on Law of Nuisances (3d ed.), § 496, and cases cited; Joyce oar Law of Nuisances, § 136, and cases' cited. The use of fuel in the home, the place of business, and the manufacturing establishaareart is aaecessary. In proportion as the population thickens, the ianprarities thrown into the air are increased. The pollution of the air, actually necessary to the reasonable enjoyment of life and indispensable to the progress of society, is not actionable; but the right (and such it must be coarceded) must not be exercised in an unreasonable maaaarer so as to inflict injury upon another unnecessarily. Embrey v. Owen, 4 Eng. Law & Eq. 476, 477. Every one has the right to use his property as he sees fit, provided that in so doing he does not invade the rights of others unreasonably, judged by the ordiaaary standards of life and according to the notions of reasonable men. The right to use one’s property as he pleases implies a like right in every other person; and it is qualified by the doctrine that the use in the first instance must be a reasonable one. The maxim is sic utere tuo ut alienum non lasdas. See the elaborate judgment of Blackburn, J., in Fletcher v. Rylands, 35 L. J. Exch. 154, L. R. 1 Exch. 265, 3 H. L. 330. Whether the property be a dwelling-house or manufacturing enterprise is immaterial. Smoke is not per se a nuisance. City of St. Paul v. Gilfilland, 36 Minn. 298 (31 N. W. 49). In Crump v. Lambert, L. R. 3 Eq. 409, 412, Lord Romilly, M. R., said: “With respect to the question of law, [351]*351I consider it to be established by numerous decisions that smoke, unaccompanied with noise or noxious vapour, that noise alone, that offensive vapours alone, although not injurious to health, may severally constitute a nuisance to the owner of adjoining or neighbouring property.” To constitute smoke a nuisance, according to the authorities, it must be such as to produce a visible, tangible, and appreciable injury to property, or such as to render it specially uncomfortable or inconvenient, or to materially interfere with the ordinary comfort of human existence. Joyce on Law of Nuisances, § 137; Campbell v. Seaman, 63 N. Y. 568 (20 Am. R. 567). With respect to dwelling-houses, the rule is stated in Wood on Nuisances (3d ed.), § 505, as follows: “The rule is that the comfortable enjoyment of the premises must be sensibly diminished, either by actual, tangible injury to the property itself, or by the promotion of such physical discomfort, as detracts sensibly from the ordinary enjoyment of life.” See also Ross v. Butler, 19 N. J. Eq. 294 (97 Am. D. 654); Duncan v. Hayes, 22 N. J. Eq. 26. That the business itself is offensive to others, or that property in the neighborhood of such business is necessarily adversely affected thereby, or that persons of fastidious taste would prefer its removal, is not sufficient. Applying the foregoing principles to the case in hand, the defendant may make any use of its property, and carry on any business not per se a nuisance, that produces no unnecessary, unreasonable, unusual, or extraordinary impregnation of tlie air with smoke or soot, to the sensible inconvenience and discomfort of plaintiff’s tenants, or to the actual, tangible, and substantial injury of plaintiff’s realty.

5. Whether a nuisance in fact existed, in the circumstances of this case, was at least a question of fact for the jury. See Hill v. McBurney Oil &c. Co., 112 Ga. 788(3), 792 (38 S. E. 42, 52 L. R. A. 398), where an injunction was granted on account of noise alone. We do not understand that the trial judge acted upon a contrary view in directing a verdict for the defendant. In the course of his remarks to the jury he said: “If smoke creates a nuisance, and it can, then the party that creates the nuisance must compensate in money any one that is damaged by the creation or maintenance of the nuisance.” While the trial judge doubtless had in mind the extent of the plaintiff’s injury, he nevertheless finally concluded that a court of equity should not undertake to regulate smoke in the busi[352]*352ness districts of populous communities, or cities. The judge expressly followed the rule announced in the. ease of Union Planters’ Bank &c. Co. v. Memphis Hotel Co., 124 Tenn. 649, 139 S. W. 715, 39 L. R. A. (N. S.) 580.

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Bluebook (online)
100 S.E. 207, 149 Ga. 345, 6 A.L.R. 1564, 1919 Ga. LEXIS 241, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/holman-v-athens-empire-laundry-co-ga-1919.