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ASPHALT PRODUCTS COMPANY et al. v. BEARD

Supreme Court of Georgia1940-02-13No. No. 13107
189 Ga. 610

Summary

Holding. The trial court erred in overruling the demurrer to the plaintiff's petition for injunction. The judgment is reversed.

The plaintiff sought an injunction to shut down an asphalt manufacturing and cement-mixing plant operated by the defendant. The court held that such plants are not nuisances by their nature, and they do not become nuisances merely because they produce smoke, cinders, dust, and noise when operated in a manufacturing section of the city near a residence, absent evidence of unusual operation or that the residence predates the plant. The plaintiff's petition failed because it did not allege facts showing either that the operation was inherently a nuisance or that improper circumstances made it one.

The petition also raised two additional defects. First, allegations about concrete and asphalt spilling into public streets constituted a public nuisance claim, which cannot support an individual's suit without proof of special damage unique to that plaintiff. Second, the plaintiff attempted to enforce an old interlocutory injunction from a different case against different corporate entities, but provided no adequate factual basis for treating the corporations as identical, nor is it legally possible for the defendants to have caused the corporate name changes alleged.

Summary generated by law.co from the public-domain opinion. The opinion text itself is public domain.

Key issues

  • Whether operation of an asphalt and cement plant is a nuisance per se or per accidens when located in a manufacturing district
  • Whether allegations of public nuisance without special damages to the individual plaintiff state a cause of action
  • Whether a new injunction action may be brought against different corporate entities based on an interlocutory injunction in a prior case

Procedural posture

The trial court overruled the defendant's general demurrer to the plaintiff's petition for injunction, and this appeal followed.

Authorities cited

No cited authorities resolved to law.co cases yet.

Opinion

majority opinion

Jenkins, Justice.

1. “That which the law authorizes . . , if done as the law authorizes, . . can not be a nuisance.” Burrus v. Columbus, 105 Ga. 42, 46 (31 S. E. 124); City Council of Augusta v. Lamar, 37 Ga. App. 418 (2) (140 S. E. 763). Thus, equity will not enjoin, as a nuisance per se, “an act, occupation, or structure which is [not] a nuisance at all times or under all circumstances, regardless of location or surroundings” (Thomoson v. Bammon, 174 Ga. 751, 757, 164 S. E. 45; Simpson v. DuPont Powder Co., 143 Ga. 465, 466, 85 S. E. 344, L. R. A. 1915E, 430; Standard Oil Co. v. Kahn, 165 Ga. 575, 576, 141 S. E. 643), or enjoin, as a nuisance per accidens, an act, business, occupation, or structure, which, not being a nuisance per se, does not become a nuisance by reason of the particular circumstances of its operation or the location and surroundings, as by some improper manner of operation or improper connected acts. Simpson v. DuPont Powder Co., supra; Warren Co. v. Dickson, 185 Ga. 481, 484 (195 S. E. 568). The operation of an asphalt-manufacturing and cement-mixing plant is not a nuisance per se. Nor does it become a nuisance per accidens, if it is conducted in a manufacturing section of a city, merely because it is operated by coal or some fuel discharging obnoxious smoke and cinders, or releases dust, or is ac companied by loud, rattling noises during the day and night, and is Avithin 200 feet of a residence, AArhere it is not shown that such operation is in a residence neighborhood, or that the manner of operation is unusual in a business of this character, or unnecessary and avoidable. This petition for injunction against the entire operation of such a plant not only failed to allege these facts, but shoAved on its face that a similar plant had been in the same location for several years, without even an averment that this operation did not antedate the residence in their home of the petitioner and his family. See Georgia Railroad Co. v. Maddox, 116 Ga. 64 (4), 77 (42 S. E. 315); Ruff v. Phillips, 50 Ga. 130, 133; 46 C. J. 666.

2. “A public nuisance, as distinguished from a private nuisance,” will not be enjoined on the petition of an individual, “unless it causes special damage to the individual, in which the public do not participate.” Warren Co. v. Dickson, supra, and cit.; Code, §§ 72-102, 72-103. The allegations of the petition as to the spilling of concrete and asphalt in a public street and its effect on persons walking along the street relate to a public nuisance, and stating no special damage show no cause of action.

3. The petition does not show any cause of action for a new injunction against the present corporate defendant named and its officer by virtue of an interlocutory injunction granted by the trial court in 1935 in another case against a corporate defendant with a different name. Not only is it not shown that the present individual defendant was a party defendant to that litigation, but there is no averment of fact sufficient to shoAv that the corporate defendants in the two cases are the same. While it is alleged that the present corporate defendant and its officer “have changed the name of the corporation for the purpose of evading the orders of the superior court,” first operating under the name of the corporate defendant in the previous suit, then under the name of a second stated corporation, and now under the name of the present corporate defendant, this conclusion could not legally be true, so as to treat the three named corporations as identical and bind the present corporate defendant by the former injunction, for the reason that it is legally impossible for the present corporate defendant and its officer to have effected such previous changes of the corporate name. Furthermore, even if the petition could be so construed, the remedy of the plaintiff would be, not to bring this new and additional action, but to enforce the order already obtained.

4. Under the preceding rulings the court erred in overruling the general demurrer to the petition.

Judgment reversed.

All the Justices concur.