Amsterdam v. E. I. Dupont De Nemours Powder Co.

• Decision Date: 01 March 1916
• Docket Number: 292-1915
• Citation: 62 Pa.Super. 314
• Parties: Amsterdam, Appellant, v. E. I. Dupont de Nemours Powder Company
• Court: Pennsylvania Superior Court

62 Pa.Super. 314

Amsterdam, Appellant, v. E. I. Dupont de Nemours Powder Company

No. 292-1915

Superior Court of Pennsylvania

March 1, 1916

Argued November 17, 1915 [Syllabus Matter] [Syllabus Matter] [Syllabus Matter] [Syllabus Matter] [Syllabus Matter] [Syllabus Matter]

Appeal by plaintiff, from judgment of C.P. Delaware Co.-1914, No. 226, on verdict for defendant in case of Benjamin Amsterdam v. E. I. Dupont de Nemours Powder Company.

Trespass to recover damages for injuries to plaintiff's house caused by an explosion of dynamite. Before Broomall, J.

The facts are stated in the opinion of the Superior Court.

At the trial Charles A. Patterson was called by the plaintiff as for cross-examination. He stated that he was the superintendent of Gibbstown plant of the Dupont Powder Company. The court sustained an objection on the ground that he was not a party or an officer or director of the company.

The court charged in part as follows:

[Gentlemen of the jury, this suit brought by Benjamin Amsterdam against the E. I. Dupont de Nemours Powder Company is prosecuted for the purpose of recovering compensation for injuries to property which the plaintiff contends he has sustained by reason of an alleged maintenance of a nuisance by the defendant on its lands.]

[The burden of proof is upon the plaintiff to establish by the evidence to your satisfaction that he is entitled to the money which he aims to recover by your verdict. Wherein you fail to be satisfied, just so far as you fail to be satisfied just that far the plaintiff fails in his case, either partially or wholly, dependent upon the extent of his failure to satisfy you.]

[Now I have said that what the plaintiff aims to recover, his alleged injuries, resulting from the maintenance of a nuisance by the defendant,] [it is important in the consideration of the case for you to be reminded, or to have in mind just what is meant in law when we talk about a nuisance; and to see whether the popular use of the term is the legal use of the term I have used, or what is meant when in law we use the term nuisance. Now lexicographers give us the popular meaning of the term nuisance, and by the dictionary it is: " Anything by the use, or by its permitted existence works annoyance, harm, inconvenience, or damage to another." That is the popular acceptation of the term. But in law it is necessary to introduce another thought besides the mere thought of nuisance or harm, inconvenience or damage -- to introduce another thought to get at the meaning of the term nuisance when it is used in law, and by the definition of a standard writer upon the subject of nuisance, H. G. Wood, you will see that the popular acceptation of the term has to be modified in order to understand what the legal acceptation of the term is, and he says: " In legal phraseology, it is applied to that class of wrongs that arise from the unreasonable, unwarrantable or unlawful use by a person of his own improper, indecent, or unlawful, personal conduct, working an obstruction or injury to a right of another or of the public and producing such material annoyance, inconvenience, discomfort or hurt that the law will presume a consequent damage."

Now you will see, therefore, that nuisance as we are talking about it, as it is used in this case, and as being used by me is that the harm and injury which one does to another must be an unreasonable and unwarrantable injury. Now in as much whenever in the administration of justice we come to a question of what is a reasonable thing or what is an unreasonable thing, whenever we come to a question that is of a variant character, and in which has to be considered special circumstances, and special conditions of the case in hand, whenever, I repeat, we come to a question of reasonableness, it is always a question for the jury, because the law has no means of laying down a standard or fixed rule. And when the rule becomes a variant one according to the circumstances of the case, the only instrumentality in the administration of justice which can cope with that question are the jury who are to apply to the question the sober common sense view of a combination of twelve intelligent minds.]

[Therefore this suit is brought by the plaintiff because he contends that the defendant is maintaining upon its property a condition, an unreasonable condition which has worked injury to him, and the particular complaint which is contended for is that the defendant has maintained, is maintaining, has maintained upon its property explosive materials in an unreasonable quantity, and by that unreasonable use of their property this plaintiff -- by the explosion of it during the term stated in the evidence running from May, 1911, to December, 1913, by the explosion of it, has injured his property.]

[Now the plaintiff is not entitled to recover merely because he may have received injury, if he did receive injury, that isn't sufficient; but he is only entitled to recover if he was injured by an unreasonable, unwarrantable maintenance by the defendant of large quantities of explosive material apt to explode either purposely or accidentally. He must not only show, convince you, that he has been injured, but that he has been injured from that cause, that he has been injured by the nuisance, that he has been injured by the defendant maintaining upon their property large quantities of explosive material or such quantities of explosive materials as by its explosions is calculated to produce the injury of which he complains as a consequence.]

Neither is the defendant exempt from liability because it may have been prosecuting a lawful business in a lawful manner; it is liable if in connection with its lawful business lawfully conducted, it is maintaining an unreasonable, unwarrantable quantity of explosives upon its property apt to explode accidentally or otherwise to the injury of the plaintiff.

Every man has a right to the entire dominion over his own property. That is a maxim of the law with which we start; but it is a general maxim and there is a limitation to it. No man has a right to the entire dominion of his property, if in the use, in the dominion as to the use of it, he injures another. And that thought requires, so far as this case is concerned to be modified: that he has no right to use the property which belongs to him and over which he has dominion and control to the unreasonable injury of another, to the unwarrantable injury of another.

Two things must have co-existed in order to entitle the plaintiff to recover, to wit: the maintenance of an unreasonable nuisance by the defendant and a consequent injury to the plaintiff. These must be proven independently. That is to say, the existence of the nuisance must not be inferred merely from the injury to the plaintiff, if he was injured. Although the fact of injury is to be considered in ascertaining the nuisance; the injury, if any, is not to be inferred from the existence of the nuisance, if any, but must be proven.

It lies in the necessary path of the plaintiff's case then to satisfy you that this defendant has maintained upon its property, unreasonably, quantities of explosives apt or open to produce injury, and that in consequence of that his property has been injured. The first question: did the defendant maintain a nuisance? This question is to be solved by inquiring: did the defendant unreasonably maintain on its property large quantities of explosive material? Now how susceptible was this material to be exploded accidentally or otherwise? How frequently did these explosions occur? Over what area did these explosions have an injurious effect? Was the plaintiff's property within that area? What was the nature, character, and location of the plaintiff's property? Was the plaintiff's property injured by these explosions? And take into consideration the location of the defendant's plant, the quantity of dynamite kept thereon. The explosive and dangerous qualities of dynamite. The character and needs of the defendant's business. The density of the population of the neighboring territory, and all the surrounding circumstances. And applying to these inquiries all of the evidence in the case, you will answer by your verdict: is the maintenance by the defendant of the explosive materials on their plant to the injury of the plaintiff unreasonable on the one hand; or is it reasonable that the plaintiff should yield his property rights, which are the subject of complaint in this case, as a member of the community in which the property is situated. That question, I repeat, is the question which you triers of fact are to determine from the evidence in the case. And in considering that question, as I have said, you will take into account the nature of the defendant's business, its character, its needs; and also the nature of the plaintiff's property its character and needs. Should it or should it not yield to the requirements and needs of the defendant's business; or should the defendant, considering the character and needs of its business yield to the rights of property which are considered in this case, rights of property which are the subject of this case. Should they yield? Both of them are members of the same community. In a state of nature they each have absolute dominion over their property; but when they come together into a community they come into an artificial state of civilization, they must both yield some of their natural rights; and the question with you is whether or not this complaint in this case falls on the side of the reasonable yielding which the plaintiff should give up, or does it not. If you should determine that it is reasonable -- if you determine that it is reasonable for the defendant in the exercise of their dominion...