Opinion ID: 2161024
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: evidence of social utility

Text: National Farms and O.N. next complain that the trial court erred in refusing to admit the evidence tendered on the social utility of their swine-raising operation. Since, as the case was tried, unreasonableness was at issue, and since that issue was given to the jury to decide, the proffered evidence on social utility should have been admitted. As we explained above, in a nuisance case, when the issue of unreasonableness is submitted to the jury, the jury is to be instructed pursuant to the Restatement (Second) of Torts § 826 (1979), which subsumes evidence on social utility. Although the proffered evidence addressed the social utility of swine-raising in general, and not the social utility of the incumbent waste disposal specifically, it should have been admitted. The authors of the Restatement obviously did not intend that an activity be broken down into discrete parts, but, rather, that the social utility of an act in its entirety be considered. The authors wrote: The process of weighing the gravity of the harm against the utility of the conduct assesses the social value of the actor's activity in general. Thus in the case of noise and other harassment created by the operation of an airport, the utility depends upon the social value of aviation and the need for air transportation. In the case of a cement factory polluting the air with dust, the utility may be reflected in society's need for building materials. The Restatement, supra, § 826, comment f. at 122-23. See, also, Soukup v. Republic Steel Corp., 78 Ohio App. 87, 66 N.E.2d 334 (1946) (steel manufacturer's part in the war effort was admissible evidence with regard to the issue of unreasonableness). We therefore hold that the evidence regarding the social utility of the swine-raising facility should have been admitted. This error, however, is a harmless one, since liability was established pursuant to the doctrine of collateral estoppel.