Court Opinion

ID: 9596466
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:50:06.433296+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:17:35.497383
License: Public Domain

Chief Justice TOAL.
I join in Part II of the opinion, but decline to join in Part I. In my view, a plaintiff may maintain a cause of action for public nuisance for personal injuries upon a showing of special injury. Therefore, I dissent in part and would affirm the court of appeals’ decision in result.
In my opinion, the majority misconstrues the concept of a public nuisance. According to the majority, Overcash’s personal injuries can be separated from the injury to property. In my view, no distinction can be drawn between personal physical injury and injury to property. I cannot find a rationale to separate Overcash’s physical injury from that of his boat. As the majority construes common law nuisance, Overcash can recover for the injury to his boat, but not for the injury to his person. I think this approach is illogical and flies in the face of basic hornbook law. See Restatement (Second) of Torts 821C (stating that when a public nuisance causes personal injury to the plaintiff or physical harm to his land or chattels, the harm is normally different in kind from that suffered by the other members of the public and the tort action may be maintained); William L. Prosser, Private Action for Public Nuisance, 52 Va. L.Rev. 997, 1012 (1966) (opining that there can now be no doubt that the nuisance action can be maintained where a public nuisance causes physical injury); 58 Am.Jur.2d Nuisances § 252 (2002) (stating that personal injuries are sufficient to show an individual’s peculiar injury as required to maintain an action for public nuisance and injuries to a person’s health are by their nature special and peculiar for the purposes of maintaining such an action).
*578Accordingly, I would affirm the holding of the court of appeals recognizing a common law cause of action for public nuisance for personal injury and remand the case to circuit court for trial on that cause of action. In addition, I would reverse the decision and recognize a private cause of action under S.C.Code Ann. § 49-1-10 (1987).
Acting Justice PERRY M. BUCKNER, concurs.