Court Opinion

ID: 9631746
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 10:48:47.76066+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:04:41.111542
License: Public Domain

HOLOHAN, Justice
(dissenting).
The decision of the majority rests on the conclusion that the holding in Spur Industries Inc. v. Del E. Webb Development Co., 108 Ariz. 178, 494 P.2d 700 (1972), is not res judicata as to the issue presented by Spur in its third party claim against Webb for indemnity. While I am not in agreement with the majority’s ruling on that issue, it is of lesser importance to a proper resolution of this matter.
The trial court granted the motion of Webb to dismiss the Third Party complaint of Spur because it failed to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. Judgment was entered for Webb, and Spur brought this special action. The parties argued the issue of res judicata to the trial court, and, even if the trial court rested its decision on that issue, we are not bound by its conclusions. If the judgment of the trial court was correct as a matter of law it will be sustained, and a wrong reason for a correct ruling is not grounds for reversal. Minderman v. Perry, 103 Ariz. 91, 437 P.2d 407 (1968); Wigley v. Whitten, 78 Ariz. 88, 276 P.2d 517 (1954).
The real issue is whether Spur has stated a claim for relief against Webb for indemnity. Spur seeks to be indemnified by Webb for the amount of damages which Spur may have to pay to some 400 plaintiffs in their action in Cause No. C-207025, Maricopa County Superior Court, against Spur for conducting a nuisance. The plaintiffs in the superior court action are residents of Sun City and property owners in the vicinity of Spur’s cattle feedlot. Their claims are based on damages to each property owner by reason of the activity of Spur in its operation of a cattle feedlot in such a manner that it became a nuisance.
Spur claims that Webb is liable to it because Webb knew of the cattle feeding operation of Spur, but it continued to develop its property for sale of homes which in turn resulted in suits by the home buyers against Spur. The Third Party complaint alleges that Webb could have prevented harm to the home buyers if they had been warned of the existence of what Spur delicately refers to as “odors emanating from the animals and body wastes produced by such animals.” Spur alleges that its activity is passive and secondary, and Webb is the primary and active actor in causing the damage to home buyers who should have been warned of the odors caused by Spur’s activities. . ■
Inviting though the argument of Spur may be, it overlooks the fact that Spur was a wrongdoer as to Webb as well as the new buyers. Webb has a right to develop its land; Spur has no right to commit a nuisance. If the home buyers have a claim against Webb it is separate and distinct from the claim that they have against Spur. Webb had a right to have the nuisance created by Spur abated.
The majority has quoted with approval from the first Spur case, 494 P.2d at 708, and this unfortunate language may serve to confuse the holding in that case. There is *108no .doubt that Spur is a wrongdoer. One who carries on a nuisance is such, and we have, so held. Over thirty years'ago this Court in City of Phoenix v. Johnson, 51 Ariz. 115 at 123, 75 P.2d 30 at 34 (1938), stated:
“The term' ‘nuisance’ signifies in law such a use of property or such a course of conduct, irrespective of actual trespass against others, or of malicious or actual Criminal intent, which transgresses the just restrictions upon use or conduct which the proximity of other persons or property in civilized communities imposes upon what would otherwise be rightful freedom. It is a class of wrongs which arises from an unreasonable, unwarranted, or unlawful use by a person of his own property, working an obstruction or injury to the right of another, or to the public, and producing such materal annoyance, inconvenience, and discomfort that the law will presume a resulting damage.”
The statutes of this state provide that maintenance of a public nuisance is a crime, A.R.S. § 13-601 and § 13-602. The public health code § 36-601 et seq., provides that local health units should abate nuisances which are a source of filth or a cause of sickness. With such statement of policy1 in our statutes and in our case law, it is: difficult for me to look upon Spur as any-. thing but a wrongdoer whose course of conduct does not deserve sympathy from this Court.
Spur so conducted its activities that it increased the magnitude of offensive odors being sent beyond its land until the situation reached the state of affairs presented at the trial in the first Spur case. Spur had no right to restrict its neighbors from developing their land. Spur was a wrongdoer, and each year it magnified its wrong. Despite this condition, the Court decided in the first Spur case that Webb should pay to close down a nuisance and move it. Today the Court apparently holds that Webb must indemnify the wrongdoer for any damages caused to property owners by the operation of the nuisance.
If these Spur cases are adhered to by this Court in the future, every operator of a nuisance which sends smoke, fumes, dust, stench, etc. onto his neighbors may be guaranteed economic protection should anyone be annoyed or harassed enough to try and stop the wrongful activity by court action. Such a result should not be allowed ( under the law of this state.