63 NY 568 (1876)
The rapid industrialization of the Gilded Age brought increasing litigation by individuals and property owners seeking damages and injunctive relief for injuries and harm caused by a broad array of business activities. In Campbell v. Seaman, the Court of Appeals came down decisively on the side of a property owner harmed by the polluting emissions of a neighboring brickyard.
The brickyard’s operations relied on a process that produced “sulphurous acid gas . . . which is very poisonous and injurious to persons who inhale it, and is very destructive to many kinds of vegetation.” The plaintiffs owned a neighboring estate of about 40 acres containing an elegant home and extensive landscaping, including many native and ornamental trees and vegetation. Periodic emissions from the defendant’s kiln had killed and damaged many of the plaintiffs’ trees, shrubs and vineyards. The plaintiffs sued for damages and to obtain an injunction preventing the defendant from using the brickmaking process which produced the toxic acid gas.
A referee found the plaintiffs entitled to recover damages for the harm done to their property and an injunction restraining defendant from making bricks under the process which produced toxic pollution. The General Term of the Supreme Court affirmed.
Writing for a unanimous Court, Judge Earl observed that property owners as a general rule may use their property as they deem fit. “But every person is bound to make a reasonable use of his property so as to occasion no unnecessary damage or annoyance to his neighbor. If he make an unreasonable, unwarrantable or unlawful use of it, so as to produce material annoyance, inconvenience, discomfort or hurt to his neighbor, he will be guilty of a nuisance to his neighbor. And the law will hold him responsible for the consequent damage.”
The court noted that what constitutes a reasonable use of one’s own property depends on the circumstances of each case and the nature and circumstances of the property and its location. “To constitute a nuisance, the use must be such as to produce a tangible and appreciable injury to neighboring property, or such as to render its enjoyment specially uncomfortable or inconvenient.” In this case, the defendant’s brickmaking process was undoubtedly a nuisance based on the facts and circumstances presented and existing case law holding that even “useful industries which produced smoke or noxious gases or vapors or odors” could be declared nuisances.
The court rejected the argument that the plaintiffs’ remedy was limited to damages only and found that an injunction was proper.
How can one be compensated in damages for the destruction of his ornamental trees, and the flowers and vines which surrounded his home? How can a jury estimate their value in dollars and cents? The fact that trees and vines are for ornament or luxury entitles them no less to the protection of the law. Everyone has the right to surround himself with articles of luxury, and he will be no less protected than one who provides himself only with articles of necessity. The law will protect a flower or a vine as well as an oak. These damages are irreparable too, because the trees and vines cannot be replaced, and the law will not compel a person to take money rather than the objects of beauty and utility which he places around his dwelling to gratify his taste or to promote his comfort and his health. . . . Here the injunction also prevents a multiplicity of suits. The injury is a recurring one, and every time the poisonous breath from defendant’s brick-kiln sweeps over plaintiffs’ land they have a cause of action. Unless the nuisance be restrained the litigation would be interminable. The policy of the law favors, and the peace and good order of society are best promoted by the termination of such litigations by a single suit.
In balancing the equities between the parties, the court was not swayed by the fact that the brickyard was already operating when the plaintiffs bought their property. “One cannot erect a nuisance upon his land adjoining vacant lands owned by another and thus measurably control the uses to which his neighbor’s land may in the future be subjected. . . . [H]e cannot place upon his land anything which the law would pronounce a nuisance, and thus compel his neighbor to leave his land vacant, or to use it in such way only as the neighboring nuisance will allow.”
The Court also pointed out that the defendant’s property had not been in continuous use as a brickyard. From 1857 to 1867 it was used as a farm. The plaintiffs had not acquiesced in its use as a brickyard or slept on their rights but had complained as soon as the noxious gases caused them harm. Nor had the plaintiffs done anything to induce the defendant to incur large expenses or to take any actions which could be charged or held against the plaintiffs.
The court concluded that the damage to plaintiffs was not “small or trifling,” but “large and substantial,” and that the defendant did not own “the only piece of ground where bricks can be made.” In the court’s view, the “injunction need not therefore destroy defendant’s business or interfere materially with the useful and necessary trade of brick making,” and “his land may be put to other use just as profitable to him.” At the end of the day, “[i]t does not appear that defendant’s damage from an abatement of the nuisance will be as great as plaintiffs’ damages from its continuance.”