Opinion ID: 24837
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Nuisance at Common Law

Text: 20 Nuisance principles form the core doctrinal foundation for modern environmental statutes, including the RCRA. The nuisance action originated in the twelfth century. See Restatement (Second) of Torts § 821D cmt. a (1979). Courts first recognized private nuisances, see id., and by the sixteenth century, began to recognize public nuisances, see id. § 821C cmt. a. A private nuisance is a nontrespassory invasion of another's interest in the private use and enjoyment of land. Id. § 821D. A public nuisance, on the other hand, involves an unreasonable interference with a right common to the general public. See id. § 821B. In determining whether conduct amounts to a public nuisance, courts consider, inter alia, whether the conduct involves a significant interference with public health, safety, peace, comfort, or convenience. See id. Private and public nuisances are not set apart in rigid, mutually exclusive categories. On the contrary, [w]hen the nuisance, in addition to interfering with the public right, also interferes with the use and enjoyment of the plaintiff's land, it is a private nuisance as well as a public one. Id. § 821C cmt. e. See also, e.g., Ozark Poultry Prods., Inc. v. Garman, 472 S.W.2d 714, 715 (Ark. 1971) (stating that landowners' suit against a factory that polluted air and water could be both a public and private nuisance). 21 These interests (i.e., in a public right and in the use and enjoyment of one's land) may be invaded by any one of the types of conduct that serve in general as bases for all tort liability. Restatement (Second) of Torts § 822 cmt. a. The Restatement explains that one is subject to liability for a private nuisance (1) if one's conduct is the legal cause of an invasion of another's interest and (2) if the invasion is either (a) intentional and unreasonable or (b) unintentional and otherwise actionable under the rules controlling liability for negligent or reckless conduct, or for abnormally dangerous conditions or activities. Id. § 822. The rules of strict liability, i.e., liability imposed without regard to the defendant's negligence or intent to harm, 16 are frequently applied to abnormally dangerous activities, see Restatement (Second) of Torts § 519 (1977), although they are imposed in other nuisance situations as well. 17 22 The private nuisance liability framework of Restatement § 822 is also generally applicable in public nuisance situations. See Restatement (Second) of Torts § 822 cmt. a. However, public nuisance law tends to impose liability more often on the basis of strict liability. See, e.g., New York v. Shore Realty Corp., 759 F.2d 1032, 1051 (2d Cir. 1985) (applying New York law and stating that liability for public nuisance exists irrespective of negligence or fault); Concerned Citizens of Bridesburg v. City of Phila., 643 F. Supp. 713, 726 (E.D. Pa. 1986) (At common law, neither individuals nor municipalities have the right to maintain for any period of time activities that constitute a public nuisance, irrespective of lack of fault or due care.); Wood v. Picillo, 443 A.2d 1244, 1248 (R.I. 1982) (stating, in a case in which multiple private plaintiffs sued under public and private nuisance alleging that the defendants' chemical dump site was polluting the soil, that generally this court has not required plaintiffs to establish negligence in nuisance actions); id. at 1247 (stating that liability in nuisance is predicated upon unreasonable injury, rather than upon unreasonable conduct); Branch v. W. Petroleum, Inc., 657 P.2d 267, 274 (Utah 1982) (Unlike most torts, [nuisance law] is not concerned with the nature of the conduct causing the damage, but with the nature and relative importance of the interests interfered with or invaded.). 18 23 Two basic remedies are available in nuisance actions - damages and injunctions. See Restatement (Second) of Torts § 821B cmt. i; id. § 821C (stating that to maintain a damage action for a public nuisance, the plaintiff must have suffered damage different in kind from that suffered by the general public and that to maintain an injunctive action for a public nuisance, the plaintiff must have a right to recover damages or the authority to represent a political subdivision in the matter or standing to sue in a citizen's action); id. § 821F (revealing that a private or public nuisance action for damages may be maintained only by those who have suffered significant harm); id. § 822 cmt. d (providing that an injunction may be obtained in a proper case against a threatened private nuisance, but an action cannot be maintained at law unless harm has already been suffered and referencing § 821C for a similar distinction in the realm of public nuisances); see also Developments in the Law - Injunctions, 78 Harv. L. Rev. 994, 1001 (1965) (explaining that injunctions are usually granted when damages are inadequate, such as with ongoing nuisances in which numerous suits or future damage awards would be required). 24 The theory of nuisance lends itself naturally to combating the harms created by environmental problems. See Geo-Tech Reclamation Indus., Inc. v. Hamrick, 886 F.2d 662, 665 (4th Cir. 1989) (stating that the operation of a landfill . . . was recognized as a nuisance even by the early common law). One commentator succinctly described environmental jurisprudence, stating: The deepest doctrinal roots of modern environmental law are found in principles of nuisance. . . . Nuisance actions have involved pollution of all physical media -- air, water, land -- by a wide variety of means. . . . Nuisance actions have challenged virtually every major industrial and municipal activity which is today the subject of comprehensive environmental regulation . . . . Nuisance theory and case law is the common law backbone of modern environmental and energy law. William H. Rodgers, Jr., Handbook on Environmental Law § 2.1, at 100 (1977). 25 Specifically, as regards the RCRA, Congress indicated that the statute embodied common law concepts of nuisance. See S. Rep. No. 96-172, at 5 (1979), reprinted in 1980 U.S.C.C.A.N. 5019, 5023 ([The RCRA] is essentially a codification of common law public nuisance remedies. . . . [and], therefore, incorporates the legal theories used for centuries to assess liability for creating a public nuisance (including [the theories of] intentional tort, negligency, and strict liability) and to determine appropriate remedies . . . . However, . . . . [s]ome terms and concepts . . . are meant to be more liberal than their common law counterparts.); cf. Solid Waste Agency v. U.S. Army Corps of Eng'rs., 101 F.3d 503, 505 (7th Cir. 1996) (noting that the interests protected by the Clean Water Act overlap to a great extent the interests that nuisance law protects). See generally infra Part III.B.2. 26 Having provided a brief summary of the common law negligence principles that underlie the RCRA, we next proceed to lay out the regulatory framework of the RCRA as it applies to the facts of this case.