Opinion ID: 894611
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Coordinating Distinctions with Consequences

Text: While there is considerable uncertainty about which nuisances are temporary or permanent, there is no uncertainty about the legal consequences. For guidance on how to make the distinction, we look to the consequences that flow from it. Thirty years ago, this Court noted several factors that lead to, and still remain associated with, the distinction between temporary and permanent nuisances: The question of the temporary or permanent character of injury to land was initially conceived as an aspect of damages. At common law, a plaintiff suing for a continuing invasion of his land could recover for only those damages accrued by the time of trial. To relieve the burden placed upon an aggrieved landowner to bring successive suits, the courts developed the concept of permanent injury to permit the recovery of past and future damages. Coactive with the advantage of a future damage award was the disadvantage of bringing the action within the limitation period as measured from the first injury; i.e., the cause of action accrued for limitations purposes at the time of the first actionable injury. [49] In this passage, we recognized three distinct consequences that result from categorizing a nuisance as permanent or temporary: (1) whether damages are available for future or only past injuries; (2) whether one or a series of suits is required; and (3) whether claims accrue (and thus limitations begins) with the first or each subsequent injury. These consequences are not unique to Texas; one commentator has noted the same effects in cases from all jurisdictions: The cases discussed in this section speak of a permanent nuisance or the like in order to decide three questions: (1) whether an earlier recovery of damages is res judicata [i.e., whether one or a series of suits is required]; (2) to decide whether the claim is barred by the statute of limitations; and (3) to decide whether the plaintiff can or must recover for all future damages at one time. [50] Because of the substantial consequences that flow from designating a nuisance as temporary or permanent, we believe application of the distinction must correspond to those consequences. Accordingly, we examine each in turn as an aid to clarifying the standards that should apply.
First, the distinction between temporary and permanent nuisances determines the damages that may be recovered. It has long been the rule in Texas that if a nuisance is temporary, the landowner may recover only lost use and enjoyment (measured in terms of rental value) that has already accrued. [51] Conversely, if a nuisance is permanent, the owner may recover lost market valuea figure that reflects all losses from the injury, including lost rents expected in the future. [52] Because the one claim is included in the other, the two claims are mutually exclusive; a landowner cannot recover both in the same action. [53] This legal consequence suggests a specific context for relative terms like temporary and permanent.An isolated occurrence may result in temporary loss of use and enjoyment, but is unlikely to result in permanent loss of market value unless the damage cannot be remedied or is likely to occur again. Conversely, construction of a source of foul odors is likely to lower the market value of neighboring property permanently, even if operations are occasionally discontinued for months at a time. [54] In either case, whether the nuisance is temporary or permanent does not turn on the conditions on any particular day or week, but on expectations about its impact over a period of years. The same considerations place terms like sporadic or constant in the same time frame. Viewed from the perspective of likely damages, it is by no means necessary for a nuisance to occur daily for it to have a constant and continuous effect. For example, if a nuisance subjects land along a river to annual flooding, market values would normally reflect that expectation (positively for some agricultural or wildlife uses, negatively for most others), even though many months may intervene between floods and in some years there may be none at all. By contrast, if a nuisance is likely to create flooding only during a hurricane, the infrequency and unpredictability of such a disaster may make future losses difficult to evaluate, thus requiring a landowner to await actual damage before filing suit. On the other end of the continuum, market values generally reflect expectations about future years but not future centuries. Thus, a permanent nuisance need not be eternal; [d]amage need not be perpetual in order to be permanent. [55] Accordingly, a sanitary landfill that lowers the market value of neighboring property may be deemed permanent, even if the landfill is expected to close in twenty years. [56] Of course, every change in property value does not indicate a permanent nuisance. Property values are affected by many factors; a decrease in market value does not mean there is a nuisance, [57] any more than an increase means there is not. [58] But nowhere do market values of land fluctuate each hour depending on wind direction and humidity. Because estimates of market value normally rest on expectations not about future days but about future years, the time frame for designating a nuisance as temporary or permanent should as well. It is of course impossible to say precisely when the future effects of a nuisance are sufficiently clear that a reasonable estimate of its impact on market value can be made. As with other types of damages, the future effects of a nuisance do not have to be established with perfect accuracy. [59] But there must be competent evidence that establishes them with reasonable certainty. [60] Accordingly, in cases in which injury occurs often enough before trial that jurors can make a reasonable estimate of the long-term impact of the nuisance on the market value of a property, they ought to be allowed to do so. The standard of reference for applying the distinction between temporary and permanent nuisances should reflect that consideration. [61]
The second reason for distinguishing temporary and permanent nuisances stems directly from the first. If future harm can reasonably be predicted, the nuisance is a permanent one and a claimant must sue for all injuries in one suit. But if future harm is anyone's guess, the nuisance is a temporary one and a claimant must bring a series of suits involving the same parties, pleadings, and issues as each injury occurs. [62] Texas law forbids splitting one claim into several suits when a single suit will suffice. [63] When we adopted the transactional approach to res judicata, we stated that a subsequent suit will be barred if it arises out of the same subject matter of a previous suit and which through the exercise of diligence, could have been litigated in a prior suit. [64] These policies advance the interest of the litigants (who must pay for each suit), the courts (who must try each suit), and the public (who must provide jurors and administration for each suit). [65] Modern circumstances redouble these concerns. Perhaps a series of duplicative suits was a reasonable approach to nuisances in a day when courts were less busy and litigation cheaper. Many years ago, nuisance suits could sometimes be concluded within a year or two of filing. [66] But that is often not the case today; for example, in this case the joinder of scores of plaintiffs and defendants in the trial court and en banc reconsideration in the court of appeals (both relatively recent innovations) meant disposition below took four and one-half years. If a nuisance that causes injury every year is deemed temporary, several new suits may have to be filed before appeals on previous ones have been exhausted. Here again, these legal consequences place the terms at issue in context. Requiring separate suits for separate injuries is feasible if injury occurs once a decade. But if injury occurs several times a year, allowing separate suits for each occurrence has substantial costs. Further, variations in each verdict may send conflicting messages to the parties, or to the market of potential buyers. And the litigants will be left in a state of perpetual litigation; while good fences make good neighbors, [67] repeated litigation is unlikely to. There is always a risk in assessing future damages that a particular claimant will be compensated too little or too much. But this alone has never been enough to justify a series of suits, at least when future damages are reasonably ascertainable. Accordingly, if an alleged nuisance occurs often enough before trial to allow jurors to evaluate it fully in one case, we should apply the distinction in a way that allows them to do so.
Third, characterizing a nuisance as temporary or permanent determines when limitations accrues, and thus when an injured party's claims are barred. Generally, a cause of action accrues and limitations begins to run when facts exist that authorize a claimant to seek judicial relief. [68] As nuisance claims arise only upon a substantial interference with property use, they normally do not accrue when a potential source is under construction; instead, a landowner has the right to wait and see what the result will be when the improvements are subjected to an actual test. [69] But once operations begin and interference occurs, limitations runs against a nuisance claim just as against any other. [70] We have recognized the discovery rule as a very limited exception to accrual when an injury is both inherently undiscoverable and objectively verifiable. [71] As plaintiffs will usually know of unreasonable discomfort or annoyance promptly, application of the discovery rule in nuisance cases is rare. [72] And even when the discovery rule applies, accrual occurs upon notice of injury, even if the claimant does not yet know the full extent of damages or the chances of avoiding them. [73] But a different rule may apply when the nature of a nuisance is substantially changed. In Atlas Chemical Industries, Inc. v. Anderson , a manufacturing plant discharged acid, fly ash, carbon, and lignite into creeks upstream from the plaintiff for more than forty years before suit was filed. [74] Nevertheless, we held limitations did not bar a suit for a temporary nuisance asserting an entirely new and different injurydamages caused by new emissions (acids required by new government regulations) to new property (sixty acres of cropland undamaged by previous pollution) due to new forces (extraordinary floods shortly before suit). [75] Thus, an old nuisance does not excuse a new and different one. Again, these general rules for limitations place the relative terms used to describe temporary and permanent nuisances in context. If noisome conditions occur only once, the nuisance will normally be temporary because it creates a substantial interference with property on that occasion, but not on any other. Conversely, once the conditions begin to recur more often, the nuisance should normally be treated as permanent because it is injury to the property in general that has occurred, not separate injuries that ought to be considered separately.
Based on these considerations, we hold that the traditional Texas distinction between temporary and permanent nuisances should be applied using the same standard of reference that applies to the consequences flowing from it. Thus, if a nuisance occurs several times in the years leading up to a trial and is likely to continue, jurors will generally have enough evidence of frequency and duration to reasonably evaluate its impact on neighboring property values. [76] In such cases, the nuisance should be treated as permanent, even if the exact dates, frequency, or extent of future damage remain unknown. Conversely, a nuisance as to which any future impact remains speculative at the time of trial must be deemed temporary. We recognize this line will not always be bright. But the inconsistent results in Texas and other jurisdictions do not suggest any brighter, and the infinite variety of circumstances in which nuisance cases arise makes it difficult to be more precise. Further, this standard should distinguish temporary and permanent nuisances in most cases. Generally, if a nuisance occurs at least a few times a year and appears likely to continue, property values will begin to reflect that impact, and jurors should be able to evaluate it with reasonable certainty. Even if a nuisance causes annoyance only during certain weather conditions or certain months, [77] annual experience should provide a sufficient basis for evaluating the nuisance. Absent evidence that current experiences are unrepresentative or about to change, such nuisances should be considered permanent as a matter of law. Moreover, this flexible standard has the virtue of coordinating the distinction with its effects; any rule that does not can lead to illogical results. For example, if a rule deemed every nuisance permanent that occurs at least monthly (and all others temporary), permanent damages might be collected even if the nuisance was about to be cleaned up and surrounding property values restored. And an annual (but not monthly) interference with a hunting lease, a garden, or one's rooftop every Christmas Eve would have to be asserted in annual suits, even though the economic impact could be estimated with reasonable certainty. This rule of application also preserves the proper role of the jury in settling factual differences. Jurors must still decide the frequency, extent, and duration of noxious conditions, facts they must settle in any event in deciding whether a nuisance egoists. Jurors must also settle any disputes as to whether similar conditions are reasonably certain to continue in the future. But jurors cannot decide questions such as whether damages can be estimated with reasonable certainty, whether principles of res judicata allow one or a series of suits, or when limitations ought to accrueall legal matters that must be decided by the court. Accordingly, we hold that a nuisance should be deemed temporary only if it is so irregular or intermittent over the period leading up to filing and trial that future injury cannot be estimated with reasonable centrality. Conversely, a nuisance should be deemed permanent if it is sufficiently constant or regular (no matter how long between occurrences) that future impact can be reasonably evaluated. Jurors should be asked to settle the question only to the extent there is a dispute regarding what interference has occurred or whether it is likely to continue. We disapprove of those cases suggesting the contrary to the extent they are inconsistent with this opinion. [78] We also disapprove of statements in a few cases that suggest nuisance claimants may elect whether to assert a temporary and permanent nuisance. [79] As noted above, the consequences that flow from designating a nuisance as temporary or permanent are not arbitrary ones, but follow directly from the underlying facts. [80] Certainly, alternative allegations may be asserted when the facts are unclear. But when they are not, claimants cannot opt for an indefinite limitations period or a series of suits whenever they would prefer.