Ohio Stock Food Co. v. Gintling

153 N.E. 341, 22 Ohio App. 82, 5 Ohio Law. Abs. 263, 1926 Ohio App. LEXIS 511
CourtOhio Court of Appeals
DecidedApril 5, 1926
StatusPublished
Cited by13 cases

This text of 153 N.E. 341 (Ohio Stock Food Co. v. Gintling) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Ohio Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Ohio Stock Food Co. v. Gintling, 153 N.E. 341, 22 Ohio App. 82, 5 Ohio Law. Abs. 263, 1926 Ohio App. LEXIS 511 (Ohio Ct. App. 1926).

Opinion

*83 Pardee, P. J.

The parties stand in this court in the reverse order of that held in the court below, but in this opinion, for convenience, they will be referred to as plaintiff and defendant, as they stood in that court.

The plaintiff, for her cause of action against the defendant, alleged that for seven years before the commencement of the action she had been the owner of 60 acres of farm land in Green township, in said county, upon which were located a dwelling house, barn, and outbuildings. The plaintiff further alleged that the defendant, an Ohio corporation, had been for four years prior to the filing of the petition the owner of a farm in said township, consisting of 212 acres, which lay in a southeasterly direction from the plaintiff’s farm and approximately one mile therefrom, and that it had erected thereon barns, feeding platforms, watering troughs, and other appurtenances for the purpose of making a daily disposition of many tons of garbage, and of feeding^ the same to hogs upon said farm; the hogs varying in number from 2,500 to 4,000 per day.

Plaintiff further alleged that there was a living stream of water, which had its source in a southeasterly direction from plaintiff’s land, and which flowed westerly through the said defendant’s property along its southern boundary and passed through plaintiff’s farm. This stream of water was of varying width and depth, and eventually found its way into an artificial body of water known as the East reservoir. The plaintiff further alleged that during the time hereinbefore mentioned, defendant negligently and willfully, and in *84 disregard of the. rights of the plaintiff, so operated its hog farm that the liquids and filth and putrid refuse from said hog farm drained into said stream of water, polluting the same and making it unfit for the ordinary farm uses of plaintiff, and causing to arise from said defendant’s farm noxious, unhealthful, noisome, and offensive odors, which reached and enveloped the plaintiff’s said farm.

The plaintiff further alleged that, as a direct and proximate result of the negligent and willful and wanton acts of defendant, she had suffered damages, for which she asked judgment.

The defendant, in its answer, admitted that it was a corporation organized under the laws of the state of Ohio; that it was the owner of the 212-acre farm described in the petition; that it had constructed and maintained said sheds, buildings, and feeding platforms; that it was disposing of garbage upon the premises by feeding the same to hogs; and that there was a natural stream of water flowing past its said premises and through the plaintiff’s, but denied the other allegations of plaintiff’s petition.

The case was submitted to a jury upon the pleadings and the evidence, and a verdict was returned for the plaintiff. A motion for a new trial was filed by the defendant, which was overruled. Judgment was entered upon the verdict, and the case is now here on error to reverse that judgment.

The defendant complains of four errors, to wit: First, that the plaintiff did not state a cause of action in her petition; second, that the court should have directed a verdict for defendant at the close of plaintiff’s case; third, that the verdict was con *85 trary to the weight of the evidence; and, fourth, that the court erred in its charge to the jury.

As to the first alleged error: The plaintiff, in her petition, alleged that the defendant, by the operation of its hog farm, (a) had polluted and made unfit for use the natural stream of water which flowed through her farm, and (b) had contaminated the atmosphere over and above plaintiff’s farm by noxious, unhealthful, noisome, and offensive odors. It will thus be seen that the plaintiff alleged that the defendant had polluted the water flowing on and the air over the plaintiff’s farm.

It is an elementary principle of law that an upper proprietor of land abutting upon a natural stream of water cannot by artificial means pollute such stream to the injury of a lower riparian owner, without being liable in damages therefor, and it does not make any difference whether the pollution is made directly by the state, by. a subordinate municipal body, or by a private corporation under a contract made with such municipality.

In the case of City of Mansfield v. Balliett, 65 Ohio St., 451, 63 N. E., 86, 58 L. R. A., 628, the first two paragraphs of the syllabus read as follows:

“1. Riparian rights are property within the purview of Section 19 of the Bill of Rights, of which the owner cannot be deprived without just compensation, though taken for, or subjected to, a public use.
“2. Any actual and material interference with such rights, which causes special and substantial injury to the owner, is a taking of his property. ’ ’

*86 And in the opinion, the court, on pages 465, 466 (63 N. E., 90), says: “In Mills on Eminent Domain, where the same doctrine is maintained, it is said, Section 79, that: ‘Riparian rights are property. Of this property the owner cannot be deprived without just compensation, nor can the state itself exercise such a power of deprivation, or confer it upon some subordinate municipality, without making compensation for the property taken.’ And in Section 182 of the same work, it is laid down as settled law, that: ‘The legislative authority to do an act resulting in damages to the property of an individual cannot be sustained, without the payment of damages, on the simple claim that the legislature cannot authorize that which is improper. It is beyond the power of the legislature to authorize the infliction of an injury without compensation. Charters should not be construed as evincing any legislative intention to authorize an injury, or to shield the corporation from a common-law action, in case compensation is not provided.’ ”

See, also, Bohan v. Gas-Light Co. and Rosenheimer v. Gaslight Co., infra.

We are therefore satisfied that the plaintiff does allege a complete cause of action against the defendant, which if established by a preponderance of competent evidence, entitles her to a verdict and judgment against the defendant.

As to the second alleged error: The plaintiff in her evidence in chief, as disclosed by the bill of exceptions, offered some evidence to sustain every material allegation of her petition, so when the defendant made its motion to direct a verdict *87 in its favor at the conclusion of plaintiff’s case it thereby admitted, for the purpose of the motion, all of these facts to have been conclusively proved, and if the court had directed a verdict for the defendant at that time it would have usurped the functions of the jury and committed an error prejudicial to the plaintiff.

In the case of Ellis & Morton v. Ohio Life Ins. & Trust Co., 4 Ohio St., 628, 64 Am. Dec., 610, the syllabus reads, in part, as follows:

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Banford v. Aldrich Chem. Co., Inc.
2010 Ohio 2470 (Ohio Supreme Court, 2010)
Portage County Board of Commissioners v. City of Akron
808 N.E.2d 444 (Ohio Court of Appeals, 2004)
Yeager and Sullivan, Inc. v. O'NEILL
324 N.E.2d 846 (Indiana Court of Appeals, 1975)
Lasko v. City of Akron
166 N.E.2d 771 (Ohio Court of Appeals, 1958)
Jeske v. George R. Wolff Holding Co.
83 N.W.2d 729 (Supreme Court of Minnesota, 1957)
Morgan v. High Penn Oil Co.
77 S.E.2d 682 (Supreme Court of North Carolina, 1953)
Widmer v. Fretti
116 N.E.2d 728 (Ohio Court of Appeals, 1952)
E. Rauh & Sons Fertilizer Co. v. Shreffler
139 F.2d 38 (Sixth Circuit, 1943)
Oklahoma City v. Eylar
1936 OK 614 (Supreme Court of Oklahoma, 1936)
Town of Sentinel v. Boggs
1936 OK 620 (Supreme Court of Oklahoma, 1936)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
153 N.E. 341, 22 Ohio App. 82, 5 Ohio Law. Abs. 263, 1926 Ohio App. LEXIS 511, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ohio-stock-food-co-v-gintling-ohioctapp-1926.