Title: Brown v. Allied Steel Products Corporation
Citation: 136 So. 2d 923
Docket Number: N/A
State: Alabama
Issuer: Alabama Supreme Court
Date: January 18, 1962

136 So. 2d 923 (1962)
Coy O. BROWN et al.
v.
ALLIED STEEL PRODUCTS CORPORATION of Alabama.
6 Div. 788.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
January 18, 1962.
Chas. Tweedy, Jr., Jasper, John T. Batten, Montgomery, for appellants.
*924 Curtis, Maddox &amp; MacLaurin, Jasper, for appellee.
MERRILL, Justice.
Appellants filed a bill for injunction, alleging that appellee, Allied Steel Products Corporation, was operating its plant in such a way that the noise emitting therefrom constituted a nuisance. After a hearing, the trial court denied the relief sought and dismissed the bill. This appeal followed.
The Industrial Development Board of Cordova was seeking industry for location in or near Cordova. As an inducement to appellee to locate a steel fabricating plant there, the Board purchased ten acres just outside the city limits for $5,000 and deeded it to appellee for the location of its plant. Appellee's chief business was the fabricating of steel tanks and cones and considerable hammering and noise was involved in the shaping and fitting of the tanks and cones.
The deed to the Board was signed by appellant Zula Miller. The other two appellants are Coy Brown and his wife Thelma, who is a sister of Mrs. Zula Miller.
When the Board deeded the property to appellee, Coy Brown was a member thereof, and he and his wife signed the deed to appellee. At Mrs. Zula Miller's insistence, the deed to appellee contained the following condition: "The above described premises are restricted to industrial use by industries which do not emit an excessive amount of foul noxious odors or smoke."
For about six months while the plant was being built, appellee operated its plant in a building in Cordova, about one-half a block from Coy Brown's store. The same type of work was done there as was later performed at the plant, and about the same number of employees were used as were being employed when the trial was had. The undisputed testimony was that the work in the city building was noisy and could be heard over the business section.
When the plant outside the city was completed and operations were started, there was no complaint from the Browns or the Millers about the noise until about eighteen months had passed. Then the appellants complained about the excessive noise and on December 10, 1958, filed their bill praying that the operation of the plant be declared a nuisance and that appellee be restrained and enjoined "from creating noises which materially interfere with the use of the complainants' property as a home place by them and award to the complainants damages they have already suffered."
The plant was located on land which was separated from the land of appellants by a highway and the Frisco Railroad right of way, over which some twenty trains ran every day, as the Illinois Central ran its trains over that part of the Frisco tracks.
The trial court heard the witnesses in January and April, 1958, but deferred a ruling until appellee had an opportunity to abate excess noise and use such means as possible to "reduce the alleged nuisance." In August, 1960, appellants again complained and the court called upon appellee for a report of progress made on the abatement of the noise.
Appellee reported that it ceased operations in July, 1958, but shortly before making the report it had resumed operations; that it had sufficient orders to operate two eight hour shifts, but in order to cooperate with complainants it was operating only one shift from 7:00 A.M. to 3:30 P.M. and had applied silencers to all equipment where feasible.
After another hearing, the court rendered a decree on May 26, 1961, denying the injunction and dismissing the bill. The court also made the following separat "FINDING OF FACT AND OPINION:"
The assignments of error, including one that the court erred in overruling the socalled motion for a new trial, raise the points that the decree is not sustained by the great preponderance of the evidence, and that it is contrary to the law and the evidence.
In Dixie Ice Cream Co. v. Blackwell, 217 Ala. 330, 116 So. 348, 58 A.L.R. 1223, we said:
Appellants argue that since the court found that "complainants are disturbed by the noise," they should not be left without a remedy. But they overlook the fact that our courts follow the "comparative injury doctrine" in injunction cases. This is explained in Pritchett v. Wade, 261 Ala. 156, 73 So. 2d 533, where we upheld the action of the trial court in denying relief where complainant sought to enjoin respondents from depositing waste materials upon his land and from erecting a muck pond thereon as a part of a mining operation. This court said:
We reach the same conclusion in the instant case.
Appellants argue that Tit. 7, § 1088, Code 1940, which provides that no manufacturing plant shall become a nuisance by any changed conditions in the locality, after the same has been in operation for more than one year, does not apply and that the trial court erred in so finding in paragraph 3 of the opinion.
We do not interpret the opinion of the trial court as applying the statute. We think it is merely one of the reasons for the application by him of the comparative injury doctrine.
Affirmed.
LIVINGSTON, C. J., and LAWSON and STAKELY, JJ., concur.