Cunningham v. Wilmington Ice Manufacturing Co.

• Citation: 32 Del. 229,121 A. 654
• Court: Superior Court of Delaware
• Decision Date: 01 June 1923
• Parties: ALLEN CUNNINGHAM and ALMA CUNNINGHAM v. WILMINGTON ICE MANUFACTURING COMPANY, a corporation of the State of Delaware, LEWIS W. DENNEY and EDWIN C. DENNY

121 A. 654

32 Del. 229

ALLEN CUNNINGHAM and ALMA CUNNINGHAM v. WILMINGTON ICE MANUFACTURING COMPANY, a corporation of the State of Delaware, LEWIS W. DENNEY and EDWIN C. DENNY

Superior Court of Delaware, New Castle County

June 1, 1923

Superior Court for New Castle County, May Term, 1923.

Summons case, No. 164, September Term, 1922.

This is an action on the case for the maintenance of a nuisance brought by Allen Cunningham and Alma Cunningham, his wife against the Wilmington Ice Manufacturing Company (a corporation of the State of Delaware), Lewis W. Denney and Edwin C. Denney, to recover damages for injuries alleged to have been done to plaintiffs' two story brick dwelling house, by the vibrations of certain machinery in an ice-making plant owned and operated by the defendants in the City of Wilmington and adjacent to the property of the plaintiffs.

David J. Reinhardt for plaintiffs.

Robert G. Harman for defendants.

RICE and RODNEY, J. J., sitting.

OPINION

RODNEY, J., charging the jury:

A nuisance is generally defined to be anything from which results harm, inconvenience or damage, or which materially interferes with the enjoyment of rights or property. That which affects the rights of the citizen as a member of the community, rights which belong to all of us as citizens of our respective communities, is a public nuisance while something which interferes with the rights or causes annoyance or damage to the property of a particular person is a private nuisance.

Every action for a nuisance is based on the wrongful act of the defendant in creating or maintaining it, and negligence is not a material element in such an action, and, therefore need not be alleged or proved.

In an action to recover compensatory damages, claimed to have resulted from a nuisance created or maintained by the defendants, it is not necessary to prove that they maliciously or with intention did injury or damage to the rights or property of the plaintiffs; the mere fact that they maintained a nuisance from which injury or damage resulted being sufficient.

No definite rule of law can be stated to cover all cases of this character, but each must depend upon the particular circumstances connected therewith. It is an old legal maxim and now well settled in our law, that every man is bound to use his own property in such a manner as not to injure the property of another, or the reasonable or proper enjoyment of it; and the carrying on of a trade or business which creates distressing noises or vibrations, rendering the...