Travis v. Martin Bros. Container & Timber Products Corp.

143 So. 2d 830, 1962 La. App. LEXIS 2198
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedApril 23, 1962
DocketNo. 5539
StatusPublished

This text of 143 So. 2d 830 (Travis v. Martin Bros. Container & Timber Products Corp.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Louisiana Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Travis v. Martin Bros. Container & Timber Products Corp., 143 So. 2d 830, 1962 La. App. LEXIS 2198 (La. Ct. App. 1962).

Opinion

HERGET, Judge.

This is a suit for injunctive relief to abate a nuisance coupled with an action to recover damages.

Plaintiffs, H. Virgil Travis and his wife Mrs. Ethel Rutland Travis, are the owners of a grocery store and residence located across the highway from a sawmill, veneer and box manufacturing concern operated by defendant, Martin Brothers Container and Timber Products Corporation, in Rose-[831]*831land, Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana. In this action Plaintiffs allege that the operation of Defendant’s plant results in the dissemination of sawdust and ashes over the premises of Plaintiffs making it impossible for Plaintiffs to keep their buildings and clothing clean; causing hazard to Plaintiffs’ health in that the operation of said Defendant’s plant is performed in such a way as to constitute an actionable nuisance, the abatement of which they are entitled to enjoin.

Defendant contends that the mill has been in operation for more than fifty years. It denies that the operation of the plant is a nuisance, maintaining that the health of none of the residents of the community is affected by the operation and contending that the dust, fumes and other foreign substances which are blown onto Plaintiffs’ premises are caused by cinders from train operations nearby or result from dust being blown from the highway near Plaintiffs’ home.

By stipulation of counsel the trial of the injunction was submitted on some 160 affidavits filed by the parties.

Plaintiffs offered affidavits of numerous residents in the area to the effect that the operation of Defendant’s plant was such that sawdust, trash, dust, soot and ashes were disseminated from the plant making it impossible for affiants to keep their houses and automobiles clean or freshly laundered clothes hung on the line to dry from being soiled.

Defendant submitted numerous affidavits, mostly by employees of defendant corporation living in the vicinity of Defendant’s manufacturing plant, to the effect that as a result of the operation of the plant they found no objection, nor was there any annoyance caused to them by the operation of the plant and that there was no unusual amount of soot or sawdust deposited on their premises; that the paint on their homes was not injured by any materials disseminating from Defendant’s plant in its operation of same; and that their clothes or washings hung on the line to dry were in no way soiled. Though Defendant filed more affidavits numerically disclaiming the complaints of Plaintiffs than Plaintiffs filed in support of their complaints of annoyances resulting from the operation of Defendant’s plant, such affidavits of denial were given by employees or relatives of employees of defendant corporation and it would appear that they would be biased in their information-given.

Following an examination of these affidavits the Trial Judge dismissed the rule for a preliminary injunction and referred the matter to the merits. Subsequently, following a trial on the merits, the Trial Judge dismissed Plaintiff’s suit for damages, and refused to grant an injunction. From these judgments Plaintiffs appealed to this Court.

In both the Trial Court and in this Court Plaintiffs affirmatively maintain that they have no desire to cause the removal of the Defendant’s plant from Roseland and that such motive in no way affects that action, but that they are seeking relief only to require that the Defendant’s plant be operated, as they maintain can be done, in such a manner as to eliminate the dissemination of the waste materials resulting in the damages, which they seek to avert.

Considering first the question of injunctive relief, we are convinced from a reading of the affidavits filed by Plaintiffs without question it is shown that the operation by Defendant of its plant in the manner in which it was being operated at the date of the institution of Plaintiffs’ suit was such as-to result in the dissemination of debris, sawdust and other substances into the atmosphere causing considerable discomfort, annoyance and inconvenience not only to the Plaintiffs but to many residents of the surrounding area. From the action of the Defendant itself we are convinced that the nuisance complained of by Plaintiffs was factually shown to exist when Defendant,, through its manager, conceded that subsequent to the institution of this suit certain' [832]*832changes were made in the operation of the mill which had curtailed the dissemination of the foreign materials into the air to the extent of some ninety per cent. Furthermore, from the Trial Judge’s reasons in deciding the case it is apparent at the date of the filing of the suit he was of the opinion that the operation of Defendant’s plant was such as to result in a nuisance hut he was further of the opinion that such operation had been corrected to eliminate the complaint of nuisance; however, in his written reasons for judgment in favor of Defendant and against Plaintiffs he taxed the costs of the suit against Defendant for the reason that the nuisance was abated only after the filing of the suit, and reserved “ * * * to plaintiff the right to seek injunctive relief if the defendants fail to operate the incinerator with the jets slanted downward as it is now being operated.” We are of the opinion that Plaintiffs were entitled to judgment enjoining Defendant from the operation of its plant in such a manner as to disseminate into the atmosphere sawdust, trash, dust, soot, ashes, smoke, fumes, bits of wood, debris and other foreign material.

From the testimony of the employees of Defendant it is apparent that the operation of the plant resulted in the dissemination into the atmosphere foreign substances; from their testimony it is equally apparent that the dissemination of such foreign matters into the atmosphere can be eliminated. According to their testimony the operation which disseminated into the atmosphere the foreign substances resulted from the installation some two years prior to this suit and the use thereafter of four conveyor or blower systems, one of which systems removes material from the chipper; one of which removes all dry material from the plant into a loading system, transferring said material to cars on a railroad track; another of which picks up waste material, sawdust from any number of saws, and which material is conveyed to a cyclone attached to the burner area; and the fourth system starts inside the plant, picks up shavings and certain materials from other operations in the building which likewise goes to a cyclone attached to the burner area.

Clearly under the decisions of McGee v. Yazoo & M. V. R. Co., 206 La. 121, 19 So.2d 21, and Ryan v. Louisiana Soc. for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, La.App., 62 So.2d 296 Plaintiffs are entitled to in-junctive relief restraining Defendant from the operation of its plant in such a manner as to constitute a nuisance, the evidence being clear that Defendant is responsible for the creation and maintenance of the nuisance in the dissemination of such foreign materials into the atmosphere, it being apparent that sawdust and burned materials are constantly diffused into the atmosphere by Defendant’s operation.

As stated hereinabove, coupled with Plaintiffs’ action for injunctive relief was a claim for damages to the gutters, the roof, the paint job of their home and to their health.

Defendant filed an exception of no cause of action to the claim for damages of community property on the contention that the husband not having been a witness on the trial of the case no cause of action was proven.

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Related

McGee v. Yazoo M. v. R. Co.
19 So. 2d 21 (Supreme Court of Louisiana, 1944)
Ryan v. Louisiana Soc. for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
62 So. 2d 296 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 1953)

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Bluebook (online)
143 So. 2d 830, 1962 La. App. LEXIS 2198, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/travis-v-martin-bros-container-timber-products-corp-lactapp-1962.