Opinion ID: 1153196
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Heading: Civil Code Articles 667-669

Text: While the owner of immovable property (or a person deriving his rights from the owner) generally has the right to use the property as he or she pleases, the owner's right may be limited if the use causes damage to neighbors (and others). The corresponding rights and obligations of neighboring proprietors, arising from that relationship, are principally governed by La.Civ. Code arts. 667-669, which provide: Article 667 Although a proprietor may do with his estate whatever he pleases, still he can not make any work on it, which may deprive his neighbor of the liberty of enjoying his own, or which may be the cause of any damage to him. Article 668 Although one be not at liberty to make any work by which his neighbor's buildings may be damaged, yet every one has the liberty of doing on his own ground whatsoever he pleases, although it should occasion some inconvenience to his neighbor. Thus he who is not subject to any servitude originating from a particular agreement in that respect, may raise his house as high as he pleases, although by such elevation he should darken the lights of his neighbors's [neighbor's] house, because this act occasions only an inconvenience, but not a real damage. Article 669 If the works or materials for any manufactory or other operation, cause an inconvenience to those in the same or in the neighboring houses, by diffusing smoke or nauseous smell, and there be no servitude established by which they are regulated, their sufferance must be determined by the rules of the police, or the customs of the place. Articles 667-669 place limitations on the rights of owners by setting out principles of responsibility applying the doctrine of sic utere tuum ut alienum non laedas, which requires an owner to use his property in such a manner as not to injure another. 4 A.N. Yiannopoulos, Louisiana Civil Law TreatisePredial Servitudes §§ 25, 33 (1983). Article 667 prohibits uses which cause damage to neighbors or deprive them of the enjoyment of their property, while Article 668 permits uses which merely cause neighbors some inconvenience. Id. at § 34. Article 669 allows suppression of certain inconveniences, if excessive under local ordinances and customs, and requires tolerance of lesser inconveniences. Together, the three articles establish the following principles: No one may use his property so as to cause damage to another or to interfere substantially with the enjoyment of another's property (Article 667). Landowners must necessarily be exposed to some inconveniences arising from the normal exercise of the right of ownership by a neighbor (Article 668). Excessive inconveniences caused by the emission of industrial smoke, odors, noise, dust, vapors and the like need not be tolerated in the absence of a conventional servitude; whether an inconvenience is excessive or not is to be determined in the light of local ordinances and customs (Article 669). Id. at § 34. Articles 667-669, while setting standards of responsibility for a landowner to his neighbors, do not purport to impose delictual liability for violation of the standards and do not specify whether responsibility is founded on negligence, intentional misconduct, or abuse of right. However, judicial decisions have clarified that conduct by a proprietor violative of Articles 667-669 may give rise to delictual liability, without negligence, as a species of fault within the meaning of La.Civ. Code art. 2315. See, e.g., Chaney v. Travelers Ins. Co., 259 La. 1, 249 So.2d 181 (1971) (holding that a landowner was liable for damage to a neighbor caused by use of heavy equipment in canal improvements, although the work was done prudently by usual standards). The concept has emerged that Article 2315 establishes delictual responsibility for injury to others through fault, a term encompassing more than negligence or other blameworthy conduct and including violations of standards of conduct set out in the Civil Code and the statutes to govern the responsibility of persons in certain relationships and arising from certain activities. See, e.g., Langlois v. Allied Chem. Corp., 258 La. 1067, 249 So.2d 133 (1971) (imposing delictual liability under Article 2315 for fault as analogized from the conduct required by Article 669, when gas escaped from a ruptured pipe which, without regard to negligence, caused damages). The courts have referred to Articles 667-669 to determine the conduct which constitutes fault under Article 2315 in the context of neighboring proprietors. See State of La., Through Dept. of Transp. and Dev. v. Chambers Inv. Co., 595 So.2d 598 (La.1992) (holding that a property owner could not recover from an expropriating authority the damages related to the delayed development of the property because there was no evidence of physical damage or injury to the property and no evidence of ultrahazardous activity or excessive or abusive conduct which exceeded the level of inconvenience which a neighbor must tolerate under Article 668). The term proprietor in Article 667 also has been expansively interpreted by the courts to apply not only to a landowner, but also to a person whose rights derive from the owner. See, e.g., Lombard v. Sewerage and Water Bd. of New Orleans, 284 So.2d 905 (La.1973); see generally Ferdinand F. Stone, Tort Doctrine in Louisiana: The Obligations of Neighborhood, 40 Tul.L.Rev. 701, 711 (1966). Therefore, delictual actions under Article 2315, based on conduct which violates the obligations of Articles 667-669 not to use one's property so as to cause damage to neighbors or to deprive neighbors of the enjoyment of their property, may be brought by persons holding rights derived from the landowner or against such persons. In summary, this court has used Articles 667-669 by analogy to determine the type of conduct which gives rise to liability without proof of negligence when activity by one party holding a right to immovable property has caused damages to a party holding a right to neighboring property. Liability generally has been imposed for fault under Article 2315 by analogy to the conduct required by Articles 667-669, despite the absence of negligence in the proprietor's conduct. Hero Lands Co. v. Texaco, Inc., 310 So.2d 93 (La. 1975); Lombard v. Sewerage and Water Bd. of New Orleans, 284 So.2d 905 (La.1973); Chaney v. Travelers Ins. Co., 259 La. 1, 249 So.2d 181 (1971); Langlois v. Allied Chem. Corp., 258 La. 1067, 249 So.2d 133 (1971). See also D'Albora v. Tulane Univ., 274 So.2d 825 (La.App. 4th Cir.), cert. denied, 278 So.2d 504, 505 (La.1973). In Butler v. Baber, 529 So.2d 374 (La. 1988), this court considered whether liability could be imposed without proof of negligence under Article 2315, by analogy to the conduct required by Articles 667-669, when the plaintiff oyster lessee and the defendant mineral lessee held coexisting rights from the owner to the same immovable property and therefore were not literally neighbors. The majority, holding that co-lessees of the same property can be neighbors within the contemplation of Article 667, required only proof of damages and causation. The concurring opinion, while reaching the same result, pointed out that other codal and statutory rules and legal principles may come into play in determining by analogy the conduct that gives rise to delictual liability of the mineral lessee to the oyster lessee of the same property. The concurring opinion particularly referred to La.Rev.Stat. 31:11, which requires the owner of land burdened by a mineral right and the owner of the mineral right to exercise their respective rights with reasonable regard for those of the other, and to La.Rev.Stat. 31:22, which has been applied to limit a mineral lessee to using only so much of the land as is reasonably necessary for his operation and to restore the property to its original condition as far as practicable, unless the parties contract otherwise. In the present case, Exxon urges us to reconsider the Butler decision and to apply the negligence standard or to adopt the reasonable regard rule of the concurring opinion. In reconsidering Butler, we agree with the concurring opinion that the portion of the Butler decision hinging liability of a mineral lessee to an oyster lessee of the same property on proof only of causation and damages reached the correct result in that case, but was an oversimplification of a complex problem. A court, in formulating standards of strict liability, should conduct an objective search for a rule to govern the case, looking for analogies among codal and statutory rules, principles, concepts and doctrines, and taking into account all of the social, moral, economic and other considerations that an objective rule maker would consider in forming a rule to govern the case. Butler v. Baber, 529 So.2d 374, 382 (La.1988) (Dennis, J., concurring). Although Butler correctly held that negligence is not the standard to be applied, there are many other considerations that go into the determination of delictual liability between holders of coexisting rights to the same immovable property, such as the temporal order of the leases or other rights, the nature of the rights, the type of activities normally incidental to the use for which the rights were granted, the damage-causing party's knowledge of the existence of the damaged party's rights, the availability of alternative methods of exercising the right so as to cause little or no damage, and others. Of course, the existence of these considerations and the importance thereof will vary from case to case. We therefore clarify the Butler decision to hold that, in cases involving damages caused to one holder of a right to immovable property by another holder of a right to the same property, the court in determining fault under Article 2315 must consider not only Articles 667-669, but also all other applicable codal and statutory rules and legal principles and other pertinent considerations.