Court Opinion

ID: 9679225
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 06:44:52.368706+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:11.521922
License: Public Domain

TATE, Justice
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent.
The trial court, who saw and heard the witness, stated in his reasons for judgment that the “weight of the believable testimony” showed that the keeping of ten to sixteen horses in this thickly settled neighborhood created loathesome odor and stench and attracted flies and rodents. The court of appeal affirmed the trial court’s issuance of an injunction which prohibited as a nuisance the continued operation of a stable on the premises.
The testimony shows that, even though the defendant complied with the (minimum) standards of the local health authorities, even though he removed manure and other waste (once) daily, even though he sprayed and poisoned, even though he covered his feed bins — in short, even though he met all those (minimum) requirements permitted by our limited injunction — , nevertheless the maintaining of ten horses or so on the premises (surrounded by residences, some with people sleeping juát four feet from horses) created intolerable stench and attracted rodents and flies which made the neighborhood unbearable.
The testimony of Charles Miramon, Director of the Bureau of Public Health Sanitation of the City of New Orleans, is of great interest. He noted that he himself had inspected the premises and, upon finding the conditions complained of, issued an order for the horses to be removed from the premises. He stated that he also filed affidavits for local criminal processing. “Unfortunately”, he said, the prosecutions were dismissed, as (he stated) was usually the case with this local enforcement agency. He stated the stables were a “health menace” and a “rat harbor” and that the enterprise had no permit, as required by law, to maintain horses in those premises in the city.
*155Director Miramon further testified that it was the function of his office, under the State Sanitary Code, to issue permits for maintaining horses. However, he stated, “we could not issue such permits because we have found from experience that it is a false sense of security because unsanitary conditions usually arise whereby horses are maintained in thickly populated areas, and this was a thickly populated area.”
I respectfully dissent from our modifying the injunction. In view of the strong evidence supporting these decrees of the previous courts, we should not disturb their considered judgment that the neighbors should have relief' — that, because of the unavoidable intolerable stench, noise, and pest-attracting filth resulting from this stable, its continued operation on this narrow lot in this thickly settled neighborhood should be enjoined.