Ingersoll v. Rousseau

• Decision Date: 23 April 1904
• Citation: Ingersoll v. Rousseau, 35 Wash. 92, 76 P. 513 (Wash. 1904)
• Court: Washington Supreme Court
• Parties: INGERSOLL et al. v. ROUSSEAU.

76 P. 513

35 Wash. 92

INGERSOLL et al. v. ROUSSEAU.

Supreme Court of Washington

April 23, 1904

Appeal from Superior Court, Snohomish County; John C. Denney, Judge.

Suit by E. E. Ingersoll and another against E. Rousseau. From a decree in favor of plaintiffs, defendant appeals. Affirmed.

Brownell & Coleman, for appellant.

FULLERTON, C.J.

This action was brought by the respondents, who were plaintiffs below, to enjoin the appellant from maintaining or permitting to be maintained houses of ill fame on certain real property owned by him, situated in the city of Everett. The trial was had before the court without a jury, and resulted in a permanent injunction against the appellant.

The trial court found, in substance, that the respondents and appellant owned lots in the city of Everett lying adjacent to each other; that the respondents used their lots as places of residence for themselves and their families, while the appellant had erected on his property certain buildings or structures which he had divided in rooms or compartments known as 'cribs,' and which he leased to dissolute and abandoned women to be used as places of prostitution. The court further found that these women employ other dissolute and abandoned women as prostitutes, who exhibit themselves in the windows and at the doors of the houses, and on the verandas and sidewalks in front of the same, dressed in an indecent and immodest manner, and solicit men passing along the street to enter the houses for immoral purposes; that these women draw around them drunken and dissolute men, who engage with them in drunken orgies, and in loud and indecent talk, and noisy and boisterous conduct. The court found that the effect of these acts was to render the respondents' properties unfit for residence purposes and undesirable for any lawful business, greatly depreciating them in value; that the injury was irreparable and incapable of being compensated for in damages, and would continue as long as the appellant permitted his premises to be used for such unlawful purposes. The court further found, however, that the respondents purchased their property after the appellant had constructed his cribs and had begun to use his property for the abovementioned purposes. The evidence also perhaps, justified findings to the effect that the appellant's property is in that part of the city of Everett where the city authorities compel, as far as they can, abandoned and dissolute women to reside, who ply their noxious trade, and also that the appellant, after the commencement of this action, but before the trial, remodeled his cribs, making them less conspicuous from the streets and surrounding property than they were before; but it appeared that they were still used and intended to be used as bawdyhouses, and it did not appear that this change would materially affect the injury done to the surrounding property by the uses to which they were being put.

The appellant excepted to certain of the court's findings on the ground that they were not supported by the evidence, and has included his exceptions in his assignments of error. While he has not seriously pressed this point in his argument, we have nevertheless examined the evidence with that thought in view, and have no hesitancy in saying that the evidence abundantly sustains the findings. And we may state here, also, that the finding to the effect that the appellant began making this particular use of his property before the respondents purchased their properties, and the additional findings suggested, do not, in our opinion, affect the controversy, although the appellant seems to regard them as of some importance. The right of the respondents to maintain an injunction, if that right exists at all, is a property right. It runs with the land, so to speak, and existed in favor of the grantors of the respondents, and passed to them by the purchase of the properties. Moreover the injury is a continuing one, constantly giving rise to a new cause of action, and lapse of time bars a recovery only for a completed offense. As to the other matters suggested, if it be the that the city authorities tolerated bawdyhouses on the appellant's property, that fact would not legalize their maintenance there--much less would it authorize their maintenance, if such maintenance injuriously affected the respondents' properties; and the change in the cribs could not be a defense unless it was shown, which it was not, that the change did away entirely with the injury.

The principal contention on the part of the appellant is that injunction is not the proper remedy. It is argued (1) that it was not made to appear that the acts complained of were specially injurious to the respondents, or that they suffered a special injury, differing in kind from that suffered by the general public; and (2) that the respondents had a plain speedy, and adequate remedy at law for the nuisance, if it be one.

The first of these objections requires no serious consideration. The respondents suffer not only all the inconveniences the general public suffer because of the maintenance of the nuisance, but, in addition thereto, they are compelled to become witnesses to the indecent conduct of the inmates of the houses, and listeners to the loud, boisterous, and indecent noises made by them and their dissolute companions. The injury caused the respondents by these conditions is clearly special and different in kind from that suffered by the general public, who are not compelled to be either such witnesses or listeners.

The second contention of the appellant, while not entirely free from difficulty, we think is also without merit. It will be remembered that courts of equity have from the earliest times exercised jurisdiction to prevent and abate public nuisances notwithstanding there have concurrently...