Court Opinion

ID: 9693457
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 16:42:16.168348+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:19:47.154175
License: Public Domain

Gehl, J.
(dissenting). I do not agree that the amended complaint alleges the existence of a nuisance. It is alleged that the water “flowed onto the cement walk and over the cement walk onto the said public sidewalk and across the said public sidewalk, and that the said water subsequently froze prior to the said 13th day of February, 1949 [the date of the alleged injury].”
There can be no nuisance except from a condition maintained over an unreasonable period of time. State ex rel. Callahan Const. Co. v. Hughes, 348 Mo. 1209, 159 S. W. (2d) 251. See also 39 Am. Jur., Nuisances, p. 303, sec. 22; 66 C. J. S., Nuisances, p. 736, sec. 6. I do not read out of the allegations of the complaint a charge that the condition of which plaintiff complains existed over an unreasonable or substantial period of time. Lacking that essential allega*402tion the complaint fails to state a cause of action for the maintenance of a nuisance.
Since, as is pointed, out in the majority opinion, there can be no recovery except upon the theory of núisance, I am of the opinion that the demurrer should have been sustained.
I am authorized to state that Mr. Justice Fairchild concurs in this dissent.