Thomas v. Concordia, Cannery Co.

68 Mo. App. 350, 1897 Mo. App. LEXIS 362
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedJanuary 11, 1897
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 68 Mo. App. 350 (Thomas v. Concordia, Cannery Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Missouri Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Thomas v. Concordia, Cannery Co., 68 Mo. App. 350, 1897 Mo. App. LEXIS 362 (Mo. Ct. App. 1897).

Opinion

Gill, J.

This is an action for damages arising from an alleged nuisance created by the defendant, coupled with a count in equity praying an injunction to restrain defendant from continuing said nuisance: The count at law vvas tried by jury, resulting in a verdict for $25 in plaintiff’s favor; a trial by the court of the injunction branch resulted likewise in a judgment for plaintiff, and defendant appealed.

Since September, 1892, the plaintiff is and has been the owner and in the possession of forty acres of land, the south line of which comes within about eight hundredfeet of defendant’s canning establishment, which was erected and supplied with the necessary machinery in the early part of the year 1894. The business of canning and preserving vegetables, including tomatoes, corn and other products, was begun by the defendant about the first of August, 1894.

The petition alleges: “that in conducting'such canning business, by the defendant, there has been, and still is being produced a large amount of slops, refuse matter, waste water, decayed vegetables, spoiled cans, and spoiled canned products, corncobs, shucks, tomato skins, and other waste matter, and that defendant, instead of retaining such refuse matter, slops, waste water, and substances on its own premises, or burning, burying, or otherwise disposing of them on its own premises, has since said commencement and during the [356]*356continuance of such canning operations, turned the same upon the land and premises of one Koppenbrink, which adjoins the premises of plaintiffs, from which, not being restrained, cared for, or disposed of by defendant, the same runs upon the said forty acre tract of plaintiffs, whereby such slops, waste water, refuse matter, decayed vegetables, spoiled corn, spoiled tomatoes, corn cobs, tomato skins, spoiled cans, and other refuse and offensive matter have been emptied upon, and caused and permitted by defendant to run upon the said forty acre tract of land and into a branch or ravine thereon, thereby damaging said land and injuring the water in said branch and upon said lands and rendering such water unfit for stock and other purposes, thereby compelling the plaintiffs to procure water for their stock elsewhere at great cost of time and trouble, making the said premises stinking and unwholesome for their stock, destroying the grass and ' vegetation and preventing the free and full use thereof for farming and pasturing purposes, and interfering with the proper enjoyment of the same by plaintiffs on account of the fetid and offensive smell of such refuse matter, whereby plaintiffs are damaged,” etc.

It seems that one Koppenbrink owned the land between the defendant’s canning establishment and plaintiffs’ property, and that the company was permitted to use Koppenbrink’s land for dumping the refuse matter, decayed vegetables, waste water, slops, etc., from the cannery. The land immediately north of the cannery was a little higher than at the building. It then sloped north, so that water or refused matter would flow north over and into a ravine or branch and thence on further north across plaintiffs’ forty acres, which was lower still than the land of Koppenbrink.

It seems that from this canning business there accumulated a large amount of stale and decayed [357]*357tomatoes, com cobs, shucks, slops and surplus water from the tomatoes. Witnesses say that the factory used daily five hundred to one thousand bushels of tomatoes and that about one half of this bulk was composed of the red juice or water, which had to be disposed of. When the cannery first began business, this surplus juice, water, etc., was permitted to escape at the building and would pass off to the south or southeast. After operating two of three weeks, the company constructed a sewer of six-inch pipe, running north across and beneath the surface of the Koppenbrink land and discharged the same into the ravine which led north across plaintiffs’ forty acres. Through this sewer all slops and liquid matter from the cannery were permitted to escape. In addition to this, the evidencefor plaintiffs tends to prove that eight or ten wagon loads of rejected vegetables, refuse matter, spoilt canned goods, etc., were by the defendant daily hauled and dumped into this hollow or branch, at and below the outlet of the sewer. The testimony in plaintiffs’ behalf further shows that when the cannery was in operation, this liquid and slop flowed continuously from the end of the sewer down the ravine and entirely through the plaintiffs’ pasture, entirely destroying pools of water collected there for stock and making it generally offensive for man and beast. And when the rains came, the vegetable matter, consisting of stale tomatoes, spoilt canned goods, slops, etc., was carried onto plaintiffs’ premises and resulted in the character 'and extent of damages as set out in the petition.

We have examined the several points made by the defendant in relation to the pleadings and find in none of them any substantial merit. The pleadings on both sides were unnecessarily lengthy and somewhat prolix. And while the court may have stricken out allegations that of themselves were not really objectionable, still [358]*358ample remained to cover every substantial matter in-issue.

At the oral argument and in brief, defendant’s, counsel charge that the petition failed, to state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action, in that it was not alleged ‘.‘that the acts complained of were done either negligently, unlawfully, maliciously, knowingly, or willfully.” In view of the liberal rules that should attend the construction of pleadings under the code, we think the objection not well founded. Litigants are directed by our code of civil procedure to make “a plain and concise statement of the facts constituting a cause of action, without unnecessary repetition” (section 2039) ; that “no allegation shall be made in a pleading which the law does not require to be proved, and only the substantive facts necessary to constitute the-cause of action or defense shall be stated” (section •2055), The courts are also admonished that “in the-construction of a pleading, for the purpose of determining its effect, its allegations shall be liberally construed, with a view to substantial justice between the parties.”' Section 2074. And that the appellate courts “shall, not reverse the judgment of any court, unless it shall believe that error was committed by such court against, the appellant or plaintiff in error, and materially affecting the merits of the action.” Section 2303.

Ni,ngtped:ti?n.ad' In the case we have here, the plaintiff stated fully and completely every substantial fact required to sustain the charge that defendant had created a private nuisance to plaintiff’s property. It was not necessary to charge that the-acts were unlatvfully or wrongfully done; it was only necessary to allege such substantive facts which the law would say were unlawful or wrongful. As to whether or not the acts complained of constituted a. [359]*359nuisance, and were therefore unlawful or wrongful, was a question of law to be passed on by the court. As well said by Judge Bliss in his work on Code Pleading, section 151: “The cause of action is the wrong that has been suffered, and the facts that show the wrong, show the cause of action; they are the facts to be found; and, upon principle, they are the facts to be stated by the pleader.” •

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
68 Mo. App. 350, 1897 Mo. App. LEXIS 362, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/thomas-v-concordia-cannery-co-moctapp-1897.