Court Opinion

ID: 9565591
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:24:08.818777+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:19:46.472832
License: Public Domain

ON REHEARING
HALL, Chief Justice:
Plaintiffs, neighbors to defendant Afton Johnson’s ice manufacturing business, filed suit in district court to enjoin operation of the business. Plaintiffs claimed that the business constituted a change in use from the prior preexisting nonconforming use, in violation of Springville City zoning ordinances. The district court found that the change of use did constitute a violation of the ordinances and enjoined operation of the business. On appeal, this Court affirmed.1 Defendants filed a petition for rehearing, challenging plaintiffs’ standing to bring the suit in the first instance. This Court granted the rehearing to consider plaintiffs’ standing to bring this suit.
Defendants did not challenge plaintiffs' standing to bring this action in the court below. However, lack of standing is jurisdictional.2 Therefore, defendants can raise the issue of standing on appeal.
This Court in Jenkins v. Swan3 formulated some general tests for determining whether a plaintiff had standing to sue. *191These tests were summarized in Kennecott Corp. v. Salt Lake County4 as follows:
1. We first apply traditional standing criteria, which require that (a) the interests of the parties be adverse, and (b) the parties seeking relief have a legally protective interest in the controversy. “Plaintiff must be able to show that he has suffered some distinct and palpable injury that gives him a personal stake in the outcome of the legal dispute.”
2. If the plaintiff has no standing under the first step, then he may have standing if no one has a greater interest than he and if the issue is unlikely to be raised at all if the plaintiff is denied standing.
3. In unique cases, standing may be established by a showing that the issues raised by the plaintiff are of great public importance and ought to be judicially resolved.5
Under the first test, plaintiffs must show that they have a specific personal and legal interest in the subject matter of the decision as distinguished from a general interest such as all members of the community have.6 Plaintiffs must also show that they suffered some injury peculiar to their own property or at least more substantial than that suffered by the community at large.7 This does not mean that a particular plaintiff must show damages different from his immediate neighbors. He must only show that the damages were more substantial than those suffered by the general public. For example, if an increase in traffic resulted from a particular variance that generally affected all owners similarly situated, plaintiff would have standing only if he could show that his property or his property and that of his immediate neigh-i bors suffered injuries more substantial than that suffered by the general public.8
In this case, plaintiffs are not just any members of the general public. They are neighbors of the ice business. Plaintiffs alleged that they were damaged by the defendants’ acts and that the activity of the commercial business, caused excessive and unreasonable noise and disruption to plaintiffs and other landowners adjoining the business. The trial judge, in his findings of fact and conclusions of law, made no findings concerning special damages to plaintiffs, although there was evidence presented at trial which reflects that special damages were suffered. Simply because the trial judge made no finding of special damages, it does not follow that there were none.
It is evident from the record that plaintiffs sustained special damages. Plaintiffs are close neighbors who are directly affected by the new nonconforming use to which the property has been put. As neighbors, plaintiffs clearly have a personal stake in the controversy which cloaks them with standing to sue.9
The judgment of the trial court is therefore affirmed.
STEWART, DURHAM and ZIMMERMAN, JJ., concur.

. Harris v. Springville City, No. 19495 (filed October 12, 1984).

. Heath Tecna Corp. v. Sound Systems Internat’l, Inc., Utah, 588 P.2d 169, 170 (1978).

.Utah, 675 P.2d 1145 (1983).

. Utah, 702 P.2d 451 (1985).

. Kennecott, 702 P.2d at 454 (citations omitted).

. See Padjen v. Shipley, Utah, 553 P.2d 938, 939 (1976).

. Id.

. See, e.g., Victoria Corp. v. Atlanta Merchandise Mart, Inc., 101 Ga.App. 163, 112 S.E.2d 793, 795 (1960).

. See Jenkins, 675 P.2d at 1150 (one who has personal stake in the controversy has standing).