Opinion ID: 1418322
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Permanent vs. Temporary Nuisance

Text: Whether the Balls seek damages for a temporary or a permanent nuisance is critical for purposes of applying the statute of limitations. While the distinctions relevant to the issue of when the limitations period begins to run in a nuisance action have often proven difficult to categorize, various tests have been utilized to determine whether the nuisance is permanent or temporary in nature. See State ex rel. Smith v. Kermit Lumber & Pressure Treating Co., 200 W.Va. 221, 243, 488 S.E.2d 901, 923 (1997). One such test, known as the ability to abate test provides that a nuisance is temporary or continuing where it is remediable, removable, or abatable, or if abatement is reasonably and practicably possible, or, according to some cases, where it is abatable at a reasonable cost, or by the expenditure of labor or money, by the defendant, or by legal process at the instance of the injured party, against the will of the person creating it. On the other hand, a nuisance is permanent if abatement is impracticable or impossible. Injuries to land are incapable of repair and thus permanent in nature when things attached to the land, such as timber, trees, soil, and buildings, are removed or destroyed. 58 Am.Jur.2d Nuisances § 29 (1989) (footnotes omitted). Kermit Lumber, 200 W.Va. at 243, n. 26, 488 S.E.2d at 923 n. 26. Another manner in which a nuisance action has been analyzed is to examine whether the acts constituting the nuisance produce damages that have a permanent affect on the value of the property involved. For example, in Keene v. City of Huntington, 79 W.Va. 713, 92 S.E. 119 (1917), this Court concluded that an incinerator plant which continuously emitted offensive odors was a permanent nuisance, reasoning that where the injury to real estate is such as to affect its value permanently, permanent damages can be recovered for that injury; or, if the character of the agency, from the operation of which the injury arises, is such that it can reasonably be expected to continue for an indefinite time, and its operation in the ordinary and proper way produces the injury complained of, the plaintiff not only can, but he must, if he would recover damages at all, sue and recover permanent damages. He can have but one suit for the purpose. Id. at 724-25, 92 S.E. at 124; see also Syl. Pt. 2, Guinn v. Ohio River R.R. Co., 46 W.Va. 151, 33 S.E. 87 (1899) (holding that [i]f a private nuisance is of such character that its continuance is necessarily an injury, and is of a permanent character, that will continue without change ..., then the damage is original and permanent, and right of action at once exists for recovery of entire damages, past and future; ... and there can be no second recovery for its continuance. It is otherwise where the damage is not continuous, but intermittent, occasional, or recurrent from time to time.). We discussed the parameters of a temporary nuisance in O'Dell v. McKenzie, 150 W.Va. 346, 145 S.E.2d 388 (1965), a case in which the plaintiff was seeking compensation for damages to her property caused when waste materials from a strip mine would periodically float downstream, block the stream, and cause flooding of the plaintiff's property: [W]here the cause of injury is in the nature of a nuisance, and not permanent in character, but such that it may be supposed that the defendant would remove it rather than suffer at once entire damages, which it might inflict if permanent, then the entire damages, so as to include future damages, can not be recovered in a single action, but actions may be maintained from time to time as long as the cause of the injury continues. Id. at 350, 145 S.E.2d at 391 (citation omitted); see also Kermit Lumber, 200 W.Va. at 243, 488 S.E.2d at 923 (recognizing that `[i]t has been said that a temporary nuisance is one where there is but a temporary interference with the use and enjoyment of property, and that, if a nuisance is a use which may be discontinued at any time, it is considered continuing in character`) (quoting 58 Am.Jur.2d Nuisances § 28). In Kermit Lumber, we were asked to determine whether soil contamination that resulted from a business engaged in lumber pressure treating created a temporary or a permanent nuisance. In reaching our decision, we found helpful the analysis used in Arcade Water District v. United States, 940 F.2d 1265 (9th Cir.1991), a case in which the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decided that the applicable two-year statute of limitations did not bar the water district's suit for contamination of its water well by a military laundry despite the closing of the laundry eight years prior to the suit's commencement. Applying California law, which defines a nuisance as permanent or temporary depending on `whether the nuisance may be discontinued or abated,' the Ninth Circuit held that the nuisance at issue could not be viewed as permanent because the contamination may abate ... and Well 31 may be restored. Arcade Water, 940 F.2d at 1268 (quoting Mangini v. Aerojet-Gen. Corp., 230 Cal.App.3d 1125, 1146, 281 Cal.Rptr. 827 (1991)). Extending that reasoning to the soil contamination at issue in Kermit Lumber, we determined that [a]s long as the arsenic remains on the Kermit Lumber business site in amounts above the regulatory limits and as long as the arsenic is flowing into the Tug Fork River, the harm or nuisance continues and thus, is a continuing (or temporary) nuisance. Kermit Lumber, 200 W.Va. at 245, 488 S.E.2d at 925. When we examine the allegations of nuisance in this case, it is not difficult to conclude that the acts of water pollution that constitute the core of the tortious acts at issue are temporary, rather than permanent, in nature. This is because the periodic dumping of effluents into the Indian River Fork, due to issues of the capacity of Culloden's wastewater treatment facility, should cease contemporaneous to CPSD's connection with the regional treatment plant. And, in contrast to most temporary nuisance cases where the temporal aspect of abatement remains uncertain, discontinuation of the nuisance under discussion appears likely in the near future since it is tied to the completion of and operation of the regional wastewater treatment plant. Consequently, this case simply does not present facts indicative of a permanent nuisance, one in which a single cause of action is required and damages are measured by the permanent diminution in the land's value. See Keene, 79 W.Va. at 724-25, 92 S.E. at 124.