Court Opinion

ID: 9748090
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 15:51:38.516216+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:31.439223
License: Public Domain

LAURA DENVIR STITH, Judge,
concurring in result.
I concur in so much of the principal opinion as holds that Kate Goerlitz is barred from suing for damages for trespass or nuisance. Section 537.294 clearly prohibits all actions in trespass or nuisance and applies here.
I disagree, however, that section 537.294 necessarily bars all injunctive relief against firearm ranges. I believe that it does not prohibit injunctive relief where the purpose of the injunction is not to bar a trespass or nuisance. As the principal opinion notes, injunctive relief is only a remedy: one also must plead a tort cause of action, other than trespass or nuisance, which may be remedied by the injunctive relief sought. Here, however, Ms. Goerlitz has pleaded only trespass and nuisance, claims the statute clearly bars. Accordingly, I concur in result.
Ms. Goerlitz lives in a home located in an unincorporated portion of Nodaway County. The city of Maryville owns and operates a firearm range on an adjacent piece of property that is located outside the city but is owned by it. The number of people using the range progressively has increased. According to Ms. Goerlitz’s affidavit, filed below in opposition to sum*457mary judgment, initially the firearm range was used by the Nodaway County sheriffs department for target practice. In recent years, employees of the department of corrections treatment center and personnel from campus safety at Northwest Missouri State University also have been permitted to use the firearm range.
On November 13, 2007, Ms. Goerlitz filed a petition in the circuit court. The petition generally averred that the firearm range subjected Ms. Goerlitz to “loud noise emissions that disturb the peace of [Ms. Goerlitz] and others.” It further alleged that the range subjected Ms. Goer-litz and others to “danger from bullets which invade the air space of [Ms. Goer-litz] and others.” Finally, the petition alleged pollution because the failure to pick up expended cartridges near the water surrounding the range “[p]oisons the environment by depositing large quantities of lead on land.”
The petition sought damages for nuisance and negligence as well as injunctive relief, alleging irreparable harm by subjecting Ms. Goerlitz to, among other things, “danger from bullets which invade the air space of [Ms. Goerlitz] and others.” In response to the city’s motion for summary judgment, Ms. Goerlitz filed an affidavit that similarly stated that “stray bullets either by direct fire or ricochet escape from Defendant’s Firearms Range unto Affiant’s property. Affiant states that the last time she heard a bullet was ... (9 days ago).... ”
Ms. Goerlitz argued that these facts precluded summary judgment because “bullets being fired from the firearm range, by either direct fire or ricochet, come onto or over Plaintiffs [sic ] dwelling and occupied property.” The trial court disagreed, entering summary judgment for the city under the newly amended version of section 537.294,1 which had broadened legislative protection of such ranges so as to bar suits against them for nuisance or trespass and so as to prohibit injunctive relief based on those claims.
As amended in 2008 and currently in effect, section 537.294.2 states:
All owners and authorized users of firearm ranges shall be immune from any criminal and civil liability arising out of or as a consequence of noise or sound emission resulting from the use of any such firearm range. Owners and users of such firearm ranges shall not be subject to any civil action in tort or subject to any action for public or private nuisance or trespass and no court in this state shall enjoin the use or operation of such firearm ranges on the basis of noise or sound emission resulting from the use of any such firearm range. Any actions by a court in this state to enjoin the use or operation of such firearm ranges and any damages awarded or imposed by a court, or assessed by a jury, in this state against any owner or user of such firearm ranges for nuisance or trespass are null and void.
§ 537.294.2 (emphasis added).
As is evident, the amended statute purports to grant to firearm ranges sweeping protections from suits over noise or sound emissions. Owners of such ranges are given statutory immunity from civil or criminal liability for noise or sound emission, and they cannot be sued civilly for such emissions in trespass, nuisance or any other tort. Further, courts may not enjoin such noise or sound emission, and if they do, any such injunction is null and void.
The city and the principal opinion argue, however, that the amended statute goes even further. They believe the statute affirmatively prohibits a court from enjoin*458ing the city from allowing users of the range to discharge firearms from the city’s property onto the property of others under any circumstances. Unless such shots actually physically injure persons or property off the firearm range, the city is free to use its property as it wishes.
I would not agree that the statute goes so far. By its terms, section 537.294 is aimed at protecting operators of firearms ranges from liability to neighbors for noise and sound, which are a natural complement to the operation of such ranges. Damages cannot be sought and injunctions cannot be issued to prevent such noise. But the statute only prohibits suit over the emission of noise and sound; here, the allegation, yet to be proved, is that the range is emitting bullets. If the statute were read as the city suggests, a court would be helpless to stop a person from purposely firing shots from the range at people outside the range; such a person repeatedly could endanger others, and until someone actually was hit,2 a court could not enjoin the conduct, even if that conduct constituted an independent tort other than nuisance or trespass.
The statutory language must be read in pari materia with the language surrounding it. S. Metro. Fire Prot. Dist. v. City of Lee’s Summit, 278 S.W.3d 659, 666 (Mo. banc 2009) (“In determining the intent and meaning of statutory language, the words must be considered in context ... to arrive at the true meaning and scope of the words”).
The first sentence of subsection 2 bars suit for noise or sound emanating from the range. The second sentence says that owners shall not be subject to suit in nuisance or trespass for such emanations of noise or sound and that an injunction against such noise or sound shall not issue. The final sentence, while not repeating the phrase “noise or sound” again, necessarily refers back to the previously referenced firearm ranges and previously barred damages or injunctive relief and says any in-junctive relief given shall be null and void. The statute only could mean to render null and void injunctions that were issued in violation of its bar on injunctions of emanations of noise and sound.3
Where claims other than trespass or nuisance are brought, the statute, therefore, does not bar injunctive relief. Here, Ms. Goerlitz has alleged facts that arguably may constitute intentional or negligent infliction of emotional distress or battery rather than merely trespass or nuisance, for she alleges that the city *459knowingly permits users of the range to shoot in a manner that causes bullets to ricochet over her property, causing her to fear for her safety and causing her serious risk of injury. Despite these factual allegations, however, Ms. Goerlitz has asserted only claims for nuisance and trespass. Injunctive relief based on trespass and nuisance is barred. Accordingly, I concur in affirming the judgment.

. All statutory references are to RSMo Supp. 2009 unless otherwise indicated.

. Section 537.294.4 states: "[Njotwithstand-ing any other provision of law to the contrary, nothing in this section shall be construed to limit civil liability for compensatory damage arising from physical injury to another human, physical injury to tangible personal property, or physical injury to fixtures or structures placed on real property.” Of course, the fact that the statute permits recovery of damages for injuries to persons or property injured by emanations from the property — whether in the form of sound, vibrations, noises, or bullets or otherwise — does not address whether an injunction can issue to prohibit dangers to public safety that constitute other torts.

. The principal opinion argues that this reading of the statute only could be correct if one could sue for noise or sound emissions in trespass, but one cannot, the opinion says, because trespass requires a physical interference with property, so the statute must be referring to something else. But that is incorrect. Noise or sound emissions may physically interfere with property if they lead to vibrations on that property. Clay v. Missouri Highway & Transp. Comm’n, 951 S.W.2d 617, 623 (Mo.App.1997) (vibrations from blasting constituted trespass on neighboring land). Moreover, intangible interference, such as that caused by radioactive emissions, may constitute a trespass. Maryland Heights Leasing, Inc. v. Mallinckrodt, Inc., 706 S.W.2d 218, 226 (Mo.App.1985).