Court Opinion

ID: 9832056
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 21:34:55.733238+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:43:41.568444
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing.
Appellant, on rehearing, assigns the following errors against our original opinion:
(1) “Because the court erred in not holding that there was a variance between the allegation and the proof and in holding that the allegation in plaintiff’s petition ‘that it ■did reduce the rent was surplusage and subject to special exception'.’ ”
This proposition was discussed in our original opinion, and, we think, satisfactorily ■disposed of.
(2) “Because the Court of Civil Appeals erred in its judgment in holding that the plaintiff was entitled to recover the loss •of rent at $2 per month per building for the 15 houses on Cement street and in its opinion in stating ‘as we construed its plea, ap-pellee was asking for the loss suffered by it in the reasonable rental market value of its 'property to which it was clearly entitled.’ ”
As we understand appellant’s proposition, its chief complaint is’ that the damages •awarded against it “were not the proximate result of the wrong complained of.” The following additional quotation from the ■statement of facts shows that the damages recovered were “the proximate result of the wrong complained of.”
“The buildings from the fourth house on the ■west and in an easterly direction were never -damaged or hurt by the railroad track. The way that the construction of the railroad track interfered with the renting of buildings on the east end of Cement street, you know when you have a row of houses, you cut one down, you cut the whole row. They require uniformity.”
The witness who gave this testimony was -an expert on the values of rental property in the city of Beaumont. He had in charge oth■er rent property of the same class as the property in question. It was his testimony that—
“When you have a row of houses, you cut one down, you cut the whole row. They require uniformity.”
It seems to us that this evidence has in it every essential element to raise for the jury the issue that the damages suffered proximately resulted from the wrong of appellant. It does not contest the issue of a reduced rental value for the injured house. Unde’r the rules governing rental property such as the property in question, a reduction in the rent of one house in a row requires a reduction of all the houses in the row. That was the clear statement of the witness. The reduction in value of the injured house was the result of appellant’s wrongful act. The reduction in value of the other houses resulted proximately from that wrong.
 (3) “Because the court erred in holding that plaintiff’s cause of action, if any it had, was not barred by the statute of two-year limitation.”
In support of this proposition, appellant cites 37 Corpus Juris, 887, where the following rule is announced:
“Wherever the nuisance is of such a character that its continuance is necessarily an injury, and where it is of a permanent character that will continue without change from any cause but human labor, there the damage is an original damage, and may be at once fully compensated.”
As we understand the many decisions of our courts, they support the following'rule, announced in Trinity Portland Cement Co. v. Horton (Tex. Civ. App.) 214 S. W. 510;
“Where a structure, however substantial or permanent it may be as to its physical characteristics, is not legally established or for the public welfare, if it is or becomes a nuisance it is abatable. The reason underlying the right to recover damages for injury caused by nuisance is to procure its abatement. It is apparently the theory that one will not maintain a continuing nuisance which is subject to successive suits for recurring injury.”
The nuisance which formed the basis of appellee’s cause of action was abatable.
There was nothing in the pleadings of either party to indicate that it was treated by them as permanent, or as nonabatable. There was no suggestion in the pleadings that it was the purpose of appellant to continue its switch in its dangerous condition and thereby create a permanent injury to appel-lee’s real estate. In fact, the record shows that appellant was ordered to abate the nuisance in a prior suit by appellee, and that appellee’s property is no longer depreciated in its rental value thereby. Had ap-pellee, before the bar of limitation matured, sued for a permanent injury to its real *895estate, it could have asked in the same suit for an abatement of the nusiance upon which the injury was predicated, to which it would have been entitled, as this nuisance was abatable.
Thus, if appellant is correct in saying that appellee could have recovered as for a permanent injury, it would have been granted a double relief, which, in the facts of this case, it was not entitled to. Wichita Falls Electric Co. v. Huey (Tex. Civ. App.) 246 S. W. 692, and authorities therein cited.
We think appellant’s assignment on the issue of limitation was correctly disposed of on the original opinion. Most of the leading authorities of this state on the question involved are cited, and some of them reviewed, in Trinity Portland Cement Company v. Horton, supra.
The motion for rehearing is overruled.