Court Opinion

ID: 9536943
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 07:10:02.761236+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:55:36.629150
License: Public Domain

STRUCKMEYER, Justice
(specially
concurring).
I am in complete agreement with the disposition of this case by the majority of the Court. However, it is my opinion that it can and should be decided without determining the question of preeminence.
This is basically a simple action. The plaintiff, School District No. 12, filed a complaint alleging that the Air National Guard of Arizona flies jet airplanes in great numbers within the airspace of or in close proximity to the School District’s buildings, causing “deafening, disturbing, frightening noises and vibrations,” interrupting the teaching processes of the School District, and causing great fear, nervousness and apprehension for the personal safety of the personnel and students of the School District. It is important to recognize that the School District does not seek to control the pattern of the flights of the Air National Guard except indirectly by restricting the use of National Guard planes for training flights during school hours. No relief is sought against the dispatching of planes by the Federal Aviation Administration in the manner of their departure, or landing, or their pattern of flying at or near the airport. Petitioners do not assert that the Air National Guard is engaged in interstate flights and do not invoke the interstate commerce clause of the United States Constitution. The issue is whether the Air National Guard may be prohibited from flying during hours which will disturb the peaceful occupation and use of the District’s school.
I am of the opinion that it is simply no defense for a state agency to say that someone else directed it to commit unlawful acts. The Air National Guard is committing the acts complained of and it matters not at whose direction. The complaint and evidence introduced at the hearing on the preliminary injunction strongly suggests that the flights of the Air National Guard are unlawful as a public nuisance:
“Anything which is * * * an obstruction to the free use of property, so as to interfere with the comfortable enjoyment of life or property * * * by a considerable number of persons * * * is a public nuisance.” A.R.S. § 13-601.
Public nuisances, by A.R.S. § 13-602, subsec. A, are punishable as a misdemean- or.
Fixel, in his Law on Aviation, 4th ed., § 113, p. 94, states:
“Low altitudes must necessarily be flown until an airplane is underway or lands, and such flights at low altitudes when resulting in interference with the then existing use to which the land is put, is outside the definition of a lawful flight, * ‡ i}c if
The Restatement of the Law of Torts 2nd, Volume 1, § 159(2), provides:
“Flight by aircraft in the air space above the land of another is a trespass if, but only if
(a) it enters into the immediate reaches of the air space next to the land, and *160(b) it interferes substantially with the other’s use and enjoyment of his land.”
The Supreme Court of the United States, in U. S. v. Causby, 328 U.S. 256, 66 S.Ct. 1062, 90 L.Ed. 1206, said that if a landowner is to have full enjoyment of his land, he must have “exclusive control of the immediate reaches of the enveloping atmosphere.” Comment (l) to § 159 of the Restatement states:
“ ‘Immediate reaches’ of the land has not been defined as yet, except to mean that ‘the aircraft flights were at such altitudes as to interfere substantially with the landowner’s possession and use of the airspace above the surface.’ * * * ”
As pointed out in the principal opinion, the National Guard is the state militia, the military force of the state, Article V, § 3, and Article XVI, § 2, of the Arizona Constitution. By A.R.S. § 12-1802 [6], an injunction shall not be granted “[t]o prevent the exercise of a public * * * office in a lawful manner * * Obviously, an injunction will lie against the exercise of a public office in an unlawful manner. As said in Crittenden v. Superior Court, 61 Cal.2d 565, 39 Cal.Rptr. 380, 383, 393 P. 2d 692, 695 (1964):
“The illegal activity of the state can no more find a haven in ‘public’ benefit than can that of a private person; its interest in engaging in illegal activities deserves no greater protection than like conduct of private persons.”
And see Wales v. Tax Commission, 100 Ariz. 181, 412 P.2d 472 (1966).
The Air National Guard is in control of the planes which have created the alleged nuisance. If it is compelled to fly at certain times or in particular patterns for safety or for any reason — here because the federal government controls the airspace through the Federal Aviation Administration — nevertheless, the Superior Court does not lose jurisdiction to enjoin the flights where unlawful as trespasses or as a public nuisance. The reason an unlawful act is committed is not a defense to the charge of unlawfulness.
The issue which should control the disposition of this case was raised by the School District in its response to the petition for a writ of prohibition in the Court of Appeals. Preeminence of the federal government is purely and simply a fictitious issue, a straw man, so to speak, raised by petitioner, the Air National Guard.
For the foregoing reason, I would vacate the decision of the Court of Appeals.