O'Keefe v. Sheehan

126 N.E. 822, 235 Mass. 390, 1920 Mass. LEXIS 766
CourtMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
DecidedApril 1, 1920
StatusPublished
Cited by15 cases

This text of 126 N.E. 822 (O'Keefe v. Sheehan) 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
O'Keefe v. Sheehan, 126 N.E. 822, 235 Mass. 390, 1920 Mass. LEXIS 766 (Mass. 1920).

Opinion

Pierce, J.

Upon a reservation from a judge of the Superior Court, this case is before the full court upon the pleadings, the) master’s report, and the defendants’ exceptions thereto. It is a' bill in equity wherein the plaintiffs seek to have the defendants restrained and enjoined from using or permitting the use of certain premises for stabling horses, or for the purposes of a general contracting business in violation of certain restrictions upon the use of the defendants’ premises, which restrictions the defendants concede attach to their premises and the premises of the plaintiffs, and enure to the benefit of the premises of both plaintiffs and defendants. The plaintiffs also seek a mandatory injunction commanding the defendants to remove such portion of a stable upon the premises of the defendants, as has been erected at a distance of less than three feet from the boundary line of the premises of one of the plaintiffs, in violation of an ordinance of the municipal council of the City of Lynn passed on May 23, 1911.

Previous to 1881, one Batcheller owned a tract of land in Lynh, Massachusetts, which by reason of its locality and for other reasons was adapted to residences of the best class, if its availability for such purposes as a tract should be preserved by suitable restrictions. Between 1881 and 1883, he divided this tract into lots and sold certain of them (hereinafter called A, B, and C) to the predecessors in title of the lots now held and occupied by the several plaintiffs and defendants. Each of the original conveyances and all the mesne conveyances in the several chains of title from the first grantor to the last grantee were granted subject to the following restrictions: “This deed is granted upon the conditions . . . that neither the grantee nor her heirs or assigns shall carry on any trade or business upon said lot that shall be in the nature of a nuisance to the abutting owners or neighborhood.” Lots A and B are owned by the plaintiffs. Lot C is owned by one of the defendants. Lot A adjoins lot B, and lot - B adjoins lot C. There is a stable on lót C distant seventy-six feet from lot B and one hundred and eighteen and one half feet from lot A.

. When the defendant Mary F. Sheehan took title to lot C, in 1907, the buildings thereon consisted of a dwelling house and a [395]*395small private barn. Her son, the defendant David J. Sheehan, in 1907 started out to do business for himself, on lot C, as a contractor and builder. Before the license was granted in July, 1907, he kept in the barn two horses; and, during the period covered by the license, three horses. The defendant David J. Sheehan Company was organized in 1908, and took over the business of David J. Sheehan. Sheehan is and always has been the president, treasurer and general manager. It is a family corporation, the stock in which is owned almost entirely by David J. and his wife. Between 1908 and 1912 inclusive, under a municipal license the barn was from time to time enlarged until in 1912 it and the extensions made a barn one hundred and seventy feet long by thirty-two feet wide. Within the same period" under municipal licenses, the number of horses kept on the premises increased from three to about sixty. The master reports at great length the conditions under which the business of the defendants was carried on before the stable was burned on December 27, 1915. These conditions manifestly were calculated to cause a material and substantial disturbance and annoyance to the plaintiffs as owners and occupiers of the adjoining lands, and fully warranted the master in his conclusion of fact “that for some time before the Sheehan stable was burned it had been a source of annoyance and discomfort to the O’Keefes living next door and to the O’Keefes living at 414 Broadway by reason of offensive odors and the pounding of horses and the presence in unusually large quantities of flies attracted by or bred in the exposed manure stored under the stable.” The defendants properly concede that the conditions of the use of the premises and the actual discomforts and annoyances to the plaintiffs in the use of their property, which naturally flowed therefrom, constituted a private nuisance at common law as well as a violation of the restrictions of their deed, but contend that the business as it was carried on was not a legal nuisance because of the licenses to use the barn as a stable. Murtha v. Lovewell, 166 Mass. 391. Sawyer v. Davis, 136 Mass. 239. Levin v. Goodwin, 191 Mass. 341. Of course this is true if the business or trade licensed cannot be carried on without interfering with the comfort of adjoining owners or neighborhood in the way complained of; but is without force and untrue if the conditions which would amount to a common law nuisance are not attributes of the business, but are the result of [396]*396its negligent management or, as in the case at bar, are the natural consequences of avoidable unsanitary and illegal conditions.

The defendants further contend that the restrictions contained in the several deeds are without effect because the negative easement therein attempted to be created, and attached to all the parcels of land, is a “reservation of no greater right than the law imposes upon every such parcel of real estate in favor of an abutting owner or the neighborhood.” We cannot agree with this argument: there is nothing in the policy of the law which is hostile to the protection of property and property rights, through a covenant or contract which is supplementary and in addition to that protection which the law affords as of right; nor do we think a municipal license to do acts, which without it would create a common law nuisance, nullifies an existing agreement which runs with land not to do acts nor to create conditions which are illegal at common law, in the absence of a legislative or municipal license.

• The barn was almost totally destroyed by fire on December 27, 1915. On December 28, 1915, the plaintiffs notified the defendants “. . . that it is the intention ... if an attempt be made to resume said business on said premises or to use said premises in any other manner that would be 'in the nature of a nuisance to the abutting owner and the neighborhood/ to seek a restraining order from the court.” On January 31, 1916, the defendants wrote the plaintiffs as follows: “. . . You are further notified that I intend forthwith to rebuild the stable which was recently destroyed by fire on my said premises, and to use the reconstructed stable for the stabling of horses in the same manner and to the same extent as the business of the David J. Sheehan Company was carried on before said fire.” On February 2, 1916, a municipal license issued to the defendants to build and use a stable for fifty horses upon the premises at 424 Broadway (lot C). On February 14, 1916, immediately after the defendants began the erection of the new stable, this bill was filed. The new stable had been completed and was occupied March 25, 1916. The hearings before the master began on March 27, and ended on June 13,1916. It is not contended that there has been a violation by the defendants of the terms of their license. Upon the question whether the use of the stable was “in the nature of a nuisance” after it was rebuilt and possession taken on March 25, 1916, the [397]

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
126 N.E. 822, 235 Mass. 390, 1920 Mass. LEXIS 766, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/okeefe-v-sheehan-mass-1920.