Court Opinion

ID: 9865905
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 23:43:27.403588+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:02:30.987121
License: Public Domain

Merits.
The wall in question in no physical way contributes to the conduct of defendants’ filling station business. It could be removed in its entirety without affecting or interfering with such business. It was designed and erected, as contended; for advertising purposes. We presume, from the testimony, that any one wishing to advertise his products for sale could buy space on this wall for that purpose. That part of the wall not involved herein, as well as the part moved back, is now being so used. Persons approaching the locus in quo from either direction (on Union street) may easily read all of the advertising matter on the wall, its entire length, before they are opposite either end of it. Advertisements on the lower 40 feet of the wall, as originally erected, could not have been seen by persons driving west on Union street until they had passed the wall’s eastern end. Therefore, moving back the eastern wing of the wall and relocating it as a prolongation of the western 85-foot wing thereof, not only removes the threat to plaintiff’s business, but in reality enhances the wall’s value for advertising purposes, because all advertising thereon may easily be read by tourists and others on Union street going in either direction, whereas, as originally constructed, this could not be done by those coming from the west. The change certainly inflicts no loss or inconvenience upon defendants, but does serve to preserve to plaintiff the income and profits of a business he has invested many years of his life in building up. The injurious effect on said business, during the brief period the removed wall existed, was a falling off in volume of 75 per cent.
Notwithstanding defendants’ denial of any design or fixed purpose on their part *511to annoy, interfere with, or injure plaintiff or his business, the facts of the case impel us to an opposite conclusion. Injurious effect upon his business by flaring the wall was clearly foreseeable by any intelligent observer; and as defendants operate a string of filling stations, to them such effect must have been obvious. We are not unmindful of the high order of private rights and privileges which perfect ownership superinduces, but there are limits to the exercise of such rights and privileges beyond which the owner is inhibited to go, As stated before, no fast rule can be laid down for guidance in all cases. The facts of the present case support the conclusion reached by us that defendants have exceeded the limitations above mentioned.
It is argued that if defendants had erected a building along the common line between the two lots, extending to the sidewalk, obscuring plaintiff's business, property, and equipment, as the wall did, that he would not have just ground to com-olain. This is true; but this illustration is not analogous to the present case. The law definitely gives the owner the right to erect buildings and walls on property lines, even though inconvenience or damage to adjoining business may be caused, but such a permit does not imply the right to commit an unneighborly act which inflicts material injury upon the business of the adjacent owner, and which at same time does' not serve as a benefit to, or enhance the welfare or increase the profits of, the offender.
The following articles of the Civil Code are pertinent to a discussion of the question involved:
“491. Perfect ownership — Power of disposition — Nonresidents.—Perfect ownership gives the right to use, to enjoy and to dispose of one’s property in the most unlimited manner, provided it is not used in any way prohibited by laws or ordinances.
“Persons who reside out of the State, can not dispose of the property they possess here, in a manner different from that prescribed by its laws.”
“505. Ownership of soil — Usque ad coel-um et ad inferos.' — -The ownership of the soil carries with if the ownership of all that is directly above and under it.
“The owner may make upon it all the plantations, and erect all the buildings which he thinks proper, under the exceptions established in the title: of servi-tudes.
“He may construct below the soil all manner of works, digging as deep as he deems convenient, and draw from them all the benefits which may accrue, under such modifications as may result from the laws and regulations concerning mines and the laws and regulations of the police.”
“667. Sic utere tuo ut alienum non laed-as. — Although a proprietor may do with his estate whatever he pleases, still he can not make any work on it, which may deprive his neighbor of the liberty of enjoying his own, or which may be the cause of any damage to him.”
Justice Provosty, as the organ of the court in Higgins Oil & Fuel Co. v. Guaranty Oil Co., 145 La. 233, 82 So. 206, 211, 5 A.L.R. 411, discussed at length these articles, and others of the Code of similar import. In the course of a lengthy opinion, he quoted from and discussed the elaborations of several eminent French authorities on this important question. The facts in the cited case are: That plaintiff owned and operated a producing oil well. Defendant drilled a well 400 feet away, on another tract of land, and it came in dry. It was left open. The air pressure in the dry hole had the effect of reducing materially oil production from plaintiff’s well. Plaintiff sued to compel defendant to close its well so that the injurious effects of the open well upon the producing well would cease. The Supreme Court overruled judgment of the lower court sustaining an exception of no cause of action, and remanded the case for trial on its merits. In his opinion Justice Pro-vosty said:
“From these excerpts it is clear that cases like the present are not to be decided by the application of any broad or inflexible rule, but by a careful weighing of all the circumstances attending them, by diagnosing them, to use the expression of Baudry-Lacantinerie and Chau-veau, with the aid and guidance of the two-principles, that the owner must not injure seriously any right of his neighbor, and, even in the absence of any right on the part of the neighbor, must not in an unneighborly spirit do that which while of no benefit to himself causes damage to the neighbor. * * *
“The allegation is that the air is being let into a fissure or conduit through which it passes out of defendant’s land into that of plaintiff and unto the radius affected by plaintiff’s pump. Now if. *512.knowing of this fissure, and knowing that any air let into it would go to plaintiff’s land and paralyze plaintiff’s pump, the defendant had sunk the dry well in question for the very purpose of its having that effect, would it not be plain that the defendant was not merely exercising its own right, but deliberately injuring the right of plaintiff. And what difference is there between sinking this dry well intentionally for that purpose and letting it remain open intentionally for that purpose.
“In last analysis the case must turn upon whether plaintiff has the right to operate the pump in question, and whether, if plaintiff has that right, defendant may interfere with it with no benefit to itself, but simply to hinder plaintiff.”
It will be noted that the court says: "And what difference is there between sinking this dry well intentionally for that purpose and letting it remain open intentionally for that purpose.”
And so it is in the present case. Even though it should be held that defendants did not intend to injure plaintiff’s business, yet, since their acts brought about such a result, with no profits or benefits to themselves, the legal effect of their action is the same as if they had purposely intended the result.
The principle laid down in the cited case has peculiar application to the facts of the present case. This principle obtains in many other jurisdictions. Volume 1, Corpus Juris, pages 1229, 1230, 'contains the following: “Section 82. Motive of Obstruction — In General. In the absence of statute, if the erection of a fence, wall, or other structure which deprives an adjoining owner of light, air, or view is lawful, it is generally not a nuisance per se, whether it was made with a malicious in-' tention toward the adjoining owner or with a desire to improve or ornament the builder’s property, as in such cases the law will not inquire into the motive with which the erection was made. In some jurisdictions, however, it is held that if an owner makes such an obstruction with the intention of injuring his neighbor, and without any advantage or benefit to himself, it is a nuisance for which his neighbor has a right of action. * * * ”
In Burke v. Smith, 69 Mich. 380, 37 N. W. 838, 839, we find the following language -of the court, supporting the principle here discussed, viz.: “While it is true that when one pursues a strictly legal right his motives are immaterial, yet no man has a right to build and maintain an entirely useless structure for the sole purpose of injuring his neighbor. The argument has force, and appears, irresistible, in the light of the moral law that ought to govern all human action. And the civil law, coming close to the moral law, declares that: 'He who, in making a new, work upon his own estate, uses his right1 without trespassing either against any law, custom, title, or possession, which may sub-, ject him to any service towards his neighbors, is not answerable for the damages which they may chance to sustain thereby, unless it be that he made that change merely with a view to hurt others without advantage to himself.’ Thus the civil law recognizes the moral law, and does not permit the owner of land to do an act upon his own premises for the express purpose of injuring his neighbor, when the act brings no profit or advantage to himself. The law furnishes redress, because the injury is malicious and unjustifiable.”
For the reasons herein given, the judgment appealed from is affirmed, with costs.