Sullivan v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Co.

57 A. 1065, 208 Pa. 540, 1904 Pa. LEXIS 800
CourtSupreme Court of Pennsylvania
DecidedMarch 28, 1904
DocketAppeal, No. 94
StatusPublished
Cited by71 cases

This text of 57 A. 1065 (Sullivan v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Sullivan v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Co., 57 A. 1065, 208 Pa. 540, 1904 Pa. LEXIS 800 (Pa. 1904).

Opinions

Opinion by

Mr. Justice Brown,

The material facts in this case, of more than ordinary interest and importance, are not in dispute. They are readily gathered from the court’s findings and from testimony which is uncontradicted. In 1859 the appellee’s predecessors in title purchased land from Jennie P. A. Sullivan, one of the appellants, and erected furnaces on it. The location of the land at that time was in Pitt township, which has since been annexed to the city of Pittsburg. It lies between the Monongahela river and Second avenue. This avenue runs along the foot of a bluff, on the top of which the properties of appellants are situated, at an average distance of about 1,000 feet in a northerly direction from the furnaces of the appellee. The tops of these furnaces are a little lower and the stacks a little higher than the bluff. The district in which the furnaces are located is, and for many years has been, distinctively and exclusively a manufacturing one, and the district on top of the bluff, where appellants’ properties are situated, is, and has been for some time, a residence locality, which has been subject to the smoke and dust from the furnaces and mills along the Monongahela river at the foot of the bluff, but was never sub[543]*543ject to ore dust, in annoying and injurious quantities, until about July 1, 1901. Prior to 1898 the appellee had three furnaces in blast on the sites of the present ones, and, about seven or eight years before this bill was filed, began to use “ Mesaba” ore. It had been using “ Old Range ” ore, the supply of which is being exhausted. The amount of “ Mesaba ” ore used during the time stated averaged about thirty per cent of the total quantity used. This “ Mesaba ” ore, brought from Minnesota, is of a fine and dustlike quality. “ Old Range ” is coarse and lumpy. No complaint is made of the emission and settling of dust upon the properties of appellants when either or both these ores were used prior to 1901.

Between March, 1898, and May, 1901, according .to the court’s ninth finding, “The three furnaces at that time eon-^ stituting the Eliza furnaces were rebuilt, improved and enlarged upon the site then and now occupied by them, and a fourth furnace added upon that site. The first of the rebuilt furnaces was ‘ blown in ’ September 1,1899; the second May 13, 1900; the third, January 21, 1901, and the fourth on May 8, 1901. These furnaces as re-built, improved and enlarged, are constructed in accordance with modern and approved plans, and in their construction are in every respect equipped with modern appliances and improvements, and are equal, in many respects superior, to other furnaces in this locality in which pig iron is manufactured, and are among the largest known in the iron business, having a capacity each of about 500 tons daily production and consuming together about 4,000 tons of ore daily.” The capacity of these new furnaces is twice or three times that pf- the old ones replaced by them. After the fourth and last furnace was blown in the annoyance and injury began, against the continuance of which relief is sought by this bill.

The escape of dust from blast furnaces in large quantities is due to what is known as a “slip,” a definition of which is found in the court’s eleventh finding: “ The escape of dust from blast furnaces into the atmosphere is, and always has been, incident to their operation. It escapes at all times, but in larger quantities when what is known as a ‘ slip’ occurs in the furnace. In the operation of all blast furnaces' ‘slips’ occur from time to time. These are occasioned by the caking [544]*544or encrusting 'of the ore in the stack of the furnace, and the falling away of the ore, fuel and limestone beneath the crust by reason of the continued combustion and the liquefaction of the iron, thus forming a chamber or vacant space into which the encrusted ore at the top drops, occasioning an explosion, the violence of which depends upon the extent of the cavity produced, and the amount of gas accumulated therein. ‘ Slips’ occur at irregular intervals, and perhaps more frequently since the use of Mesaba ores, their frequency depending upon the manner in which the furnace is working. Sometimes there may be but four ‘ slips’ in twenty-four hours, while at other times during the same period the number may be as high as eighteen.”

The seventeenth finding is: “ Ore dust was first noticed settling upon properties in the neighborhood of defendant’s furnaces as early as 1899, but the deposit did not become serious until about July, 1901. Since that time, dust, in greater or less quantities, has been carried from the defendant’s furnaces and deposited upon and about plaintiffs’ premises. The effect of the dust is not only annoying, but injurious to property; it chokes rain conductors upon the houses, discolors fabrics and paints, and injures carpets and curtains; it is of a greasy nature and difficult to remove from both garments and paints ; it has also been destructive to fruit and shade trees and vegetation generally, and has depreciated the value of plaintiffs’ properties from twenty-five per cent to fifty per cent.” The furnaces were operated in a careful and skillful manner, and no effort or money was spared to keep them in constant good order and repair. As to the escape of this ore dust, a further finding is the sixteenth: “ The escape of ore dust due to ‘ slips’ in the furnace is a financial loss to the operator, both in the matter of production and in the loss of ore; the defendant has been diligent in its efforts to find means, or to adopt appliances or inventions which will prevent the escape of dust from its furnaces; up to the present time no appliance has been found which will effectually prevent, or reasonably diminish, the escape of the ore dust from blast furnaces, when ‘ slips’ occur. The use of Old Range ores exclusively would not materially lessen the number of ‘ slips’ occurring in furnaces, but would to a considerable extent de[545]*545crease the amount of ore dust discharged into the air at each explosion.”

Answering requests for findings of fact by the appellants, the court said that, in its own findings, it had substantially found the following : “ The residence district in which plaintiffs’ property is situated, and which is a part of the Fourteenth ward of the city of Pittsburg, was, prior to the year 1899, a pleasant and habitable part of the city. While subject, as most parts of the city are, to smoke, it occasioned no special inconvenience to the inhabitants and the testimony shows that flowers, trees, and shrubs were kept and cared for, and were not injured by any smoke or dust which might prevail throughout the' district. Some of the witnesses for the plaintiffs testify that they first noticed the ore dust as early as 1899, but it did not become serious until the year 1901. In the latter year, when all four furnaces were completed and in operation, the ore dust was thrown out in large quantities and at more frequent intervals and has increased from that time down until the filing of the bill. The plaintiffs’ property by-reason of its location near the defendant’s furnaces, receives the full effect of the discharge of ore dust therefrom. Almost all the trees in the orchard which formerly produced some eighty bushels of pears in a season, the shade trees, of which there were something over twenty in number, and the shrubbery about the house have been for the most part destroyed. The whole property has been blackened and disfigured. A number of tenants have been forced to leave the dwelling houses by reason of the penetrating and damaging deposits of ore dust.

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Bluebook (online)
57 A. 1065, 208 Pa. 540, 1904 Pa. LEXIS 800, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/sullivan-v-jones-laughlin-steel-co-pa-1904.