Court Opinion

ID: 9721542
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 09:02:07.418752+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:27.120626
License: Public Domain

Black, J.
(dissenting). With Division 3 (21 Mich App 103) I agree that plaintiff failed to make out a cause submissible under his pleaded theory of recovery, and that the verdict of the jury and the judgment of the circuit court should for that reason lie sustained.
The pedestal supporting this grade-crossing warning signal, said by plaintiff as having constituted an actionable nuisance, was constructed and maintained by the defendants in specific accord with a valid *609order of the Public Service Commission, and it is difficult to perceive how or by what lawful means defendants might have proceeded otherwise, the jurisdiction of the commission considered.
The April 11, 1928 order of the commission being unchallenged, both as to jurisdiction and the manner in which the defendants proceeded to execute that order, the general rule applies. It is that the courts will not hold conduct to constitute a nuisance where authority therefor exists by virtue of legislative enactment. The authorities are gathered in 58 Am Jur 2d, Nuisances, § 228 et seq. under heading “C. Legislative or Municipal Authority,” pp 831-841. The first paragraph of topic “C” above, beginning § 228, states the rule I would apply:
“Generally, the courts will not hold conduct to constitute a nuisance where authority therefor exists by virtue of legislative enactment, and there are numerous statements in the cases to the effect that although it otherwise would be one, the doing of that which the law authorizes cannot be a nuisance, or such a nuisance as will give a common-law right of action. It has also been held that when the legislature directs or allows that to be done which would otherwise be a nuisance, it will be valid on the ground that the legislature is ordinarily the proper judge of what the public good requires, unless carried to such an extent that it can fairly be said to be an unwholesome and unreasonable law. The authorities are agreed that the legislature may legalize, insofar as the public is concerned, what would otherwise be a public nuisance, and according to some of the courts, it may legalize what would otherwise be private nuisances, so as to prevent the recovery of damages or relief by way of injunction on account of them, but the weight of authority is to the contrary. It has been held that the legislature may *610legalize an act which has been enjoined by a court, or which the court has under consideration in a suit for its abatement.”
My vote is cast to affirm.
T. E. Brennan, J., concurred with Black, J.