Title: MONSANTO CHEMICAL COMPANY v. Fincher

State: alabama

Issuer: Alabama Supreme Court

Document:

133 So. 2d 192 (1961)
MONSANTO CHEMICAL COMPANY
v.
Joe C. FINCHER et al.
7 Div. 427.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
September 14, 1961.
*193 Knox, Jones, Woolf & Merrill, Anniston, for appellant.
Roy D. McCord and L. D. Martin, Gadsden, for appellees.
COLEMAN, Justice.
This is an appeal by respondent from a decree overruling demurrer to a bill to enjoin a nuisance alleged to be created by the operation of an insecticide plant by respondent just outside the corporate limits of the City of Anniston.
The bill alleges that complainants are each bona fide resident citizens of Calhoun County, and that respondent is a corporation operating its plant as aforesaid.
Appellant, respondent, states the questions in the case as follows:
We are of opinion that appellees, as individuals, can maintain the bill, and also that the bill states sufficient grounds for an injunction to abate the nuisance complained of.
In pertinent part, the bill of complaint recites:
The rules governing the right of an individual to abate a public nuisance have been stated as follows:
and also:
This court has sustained the right to an injunction to abate nuisances consisting of emitting obnoxious odors and gases from a tobacco drying house, Hundley v. Harrison, 123 Ala. 292, 26 So. 294; a stable, Kyser v. Hertzler, 188 Ala. 658, 65 So. 967; a sewer dump, City of Selma v. Jones, 202 Ala. 82, 79 So. 476, L.R.A.1918F, 1020; and odors and flies from a live poultry plant, Strickland v. Lambert, 268 Ala. 580, 109 So. 2d 664.
The law does not require that before a party can abate a nuisance he must show an injury which is unique to him. Strickland v. Lambert, supra.
In the case at bar, the bill alleges that the gases and odors from respondent's plant permeate the homes, offices, and business places of the complainants; that the stench is so severe that on many occasions complainants or their families have vomited, have been unable to eat, and have been made seriously sick; and that the property of complainants has greatly decreased in value. The alleged injury to the respective complainants is an injury to their respective rights to use and enjoy their individual property free from the odors and gases, and is to each complainant an injury in which no one else participates, although others may suffer a like injury to the enjoyment of their separate property. We are of opinion that the allegations of the bill establish a private nuisance or a public one from which the complainants, respectively, suffer a special injury different in kind from that suffered by the public generally; and, therefore, that the complainants, as individuals, are entitled to abate the nuisance alleged in the bill.
*195 As to the second proposition, respondent appears to insist that even if the averments of the bill show a nuisance, the bill fails to assert that the nuisance will continue, if not enjoined, or that complainants will suffer irreparable damage or such damage as will authorize the issuance of an injunction.
From the allegations of paragraph 2 of the bill quoted above, we conclude that the injury to complainants is an irreparable one; that if the operations of respondent continue, the damage to complainants will continue; and that complainants will be put to a multiplicity of suits at law to obtain judgments for future damage. The injury to complainants is in the nature of a continuing trespass and equity has jurisdiction to enjoin continuing trespasses. This court held that equity would enjoin nuisances similar to that here complained of in Hundley v. Harrison, Kyser v. Hertzler, City of Selma v. Jones, and Strickland v. Lambert, supra. We hold, therefore, that equity has jurisdiction to enjoin the nuisance complained of here.
Respondent appears to argue that the bill fails to allege that respondent's plant operation, and the alleged nuisance caused thereby, will continue. The bill does not so allege in express terms. Paragraph 3 of the bill, however, recites as follows:
As insisted by respondent, an injunction operates prospectively and is preventive of future injury. In considering this question, however, the past course of conduct, with the continuance of like conditions, offering the same inducements and opportunities for such wrongful invasion of the rights of complainants, are quite pertinent. Scofield v. Perry Creamery Company, 234 Ala. 560, 176 So. 195.
If respondent does not intend, or threaten, to continue the operation of its plant, then there would appear to be no necessity for an injunction, and if the averments of the bill fail to show such intention, then respondent's point would appear well taken. We think, however, that the bill shows that respondent intends to continue to operate the plant.
*196 The averments of paragraph 3 of the bill expressly state that respondent is operating the plant and knowingly causing the nuisance at the time of the filing of the bill. Complainants allege in paragraph 2 of the bill "* * * that the Plaintiffs and their families have been made seriously sick and their health has been seriously endangered and is continuously `being endangered by reason of the unhealthy and unwholesome nuisance created by the Defendant as aforesaid * * *." (Emphasis supplied.) We think the averments of the bill must be taken as stating that respondent, unless restrained, will continue the operation of the plant so as to cause the nuisance complained of.
We are of opinion that the bill is not subject to the grounds of demurrer argued by appellant and that the decree overruling the demurrer is without error.
Affirmed.
LIVINGSTON, C. J., and SIMPSON and GOODWYN, JJ., concur.