Koseris v. J. R. Simplot Co.

• Decision Date: 19 May 1960
• Docket Number: Nos. 8809-,s. 8809-
• Parties: Mike KOSERIS and Sophia Koseris, husband and wife, Plaintiffs-Respondents, v. J. R. SIMPLOT COMPANY, an Idaho Corporation, and J. R. Simplot, Defendants-Appellants (two cases). to 8810.
• Court: Idaho Supreme Court

Page 235

352 P.2d 235

82 Idaho 263

Mike KOSERIS and Sophia Koseris, husband and wife, Plaintiffs-Respondents, v. J. R. SIMPLOT COMPANY, an Idaho Corporation, and J. R. Simplot, Defendants-Appellants (two cases).

Nos. 8809-to 8810.

Supreme Court of Idaho.

May 19, 1960.

O. R. Baum, Ben Peterson, Ruby Y. Brown, Merrill K. Gee, Gee & Hargraves, Pocatello, for appellants.

Gus Carr Anderson, Pocatello, for respondents.

SMITH, Justice.

Respondents instituted this action seeking monetary damages against appellants, hereinafter called Simplot Company, allegedly caused by the operation of a chemical fertilizer plant, and for injunctive relief. After commencement of the trial, respondents waived all claims for damages, which left for decision only the question of injunctive relief.

Respondents, continuously from the year 1941, to the time of the trial (during November, 1957), were the owners of a two-acre tract situate some six to seven miles westerly from Pocatello, in Power County, on the north side of U. S. Highway No. 30 which extends in an easterly-westerly direction, and the owners of a cinder block building situate thereon, in size 65 feet by 85 feet, originally constructed for night club purposes.

Simplot Company, continuously from the year 1943, to the time of trial, owned a 135-acre tract in the near vicinity of appellants' property, in and upon which, during December 1944, it constructed an industrial fertilizer plant for the purpose of manufacturing and converting phosphate ores into chemical fertilizer. This plant is situate some 300 to 400 yards westerly from respondents' building, on the south side of U. S. Highway No. 30, and also on the south side of the Union Pacific railroad which parallels the highway along its south boundary.

Appellant in the manufacture of a chemical fertilizer grinds and processes a phosphate ore, mixing chemicals therewith.

During the year 1949-1950 appellant enlarged and expanded the fertilizer plant and increased production of its output of chemical fertilizer. The processes, by which the fertilizer is manufactured and produced, result in the emission from the plant and entering into the air of a quantity of finely powdered dust and smoke having an offensive odor, which at times, according to the direction of air currents, is carried across the railroad tracks and U. S. Highway No. 30 over and onto the premises of respondents.

Respondents' building has not been operated as a night club or other business since some time during the year 1951; during that year the club was 'padlocked' by the sheriff of Power County in an abatement proceeding against the place. The injunctive order was not released until August 2, 1957. Since some time during 1951 to the time of trial the building has been vacant, except for storage of small items.

Simplot Company for some time has been improving the operation of its plant, and improving the control of the dust and fumes therefrom, and has expended large sums in such improvements. The trial court found that the company has reduced the emission of dust and fumes, and that its products have been greatly changed and improved.

The trial court, sitting without a jury, at the conclusion of the testimony, issued an order enjoining appellant from putting dust, smoke or obnoxious odors upon or across respondents' property; and providing that if appellant's plant cannot be operated without causing dust, smoke and obnoxious odors to be placed upon respondents' land, then appellant must cease its operations and be enjoined from so operating.

Appellants assign error of the trial court in entering judgment granting to respondents the injunctive relief. Simplot Company contends that injunctive relief is not the proper remedy, urging that respondents' entitlement to relief, if any they had, rested in damages, under the comparative injury doctrine.

Simplot Company, in support of its contention that the granting of injunctive relief is improper, offered evidence relating to the social and economic value of its fertilizer manufacturing plant, in effect contending that such evidence should have been weighed against that relating to respondents' operations, in determining whether injunctive relief is the appropriate remedy, if a nuisance be found to exist. The trial court excluded such evidence, whereupon the company made its offers of proof substantially as follows:

That in the operation of its fertilizer plant it carries on a leading industry in southeastern Idaho, with a capital investment of approximately $5,500,000; that its investment in inventory at the fertilizer plant in Power County as of November 1, 1957, was $1,627,207; that as of the same date its investment at the Gay Mine, where it obtains its phosphate ores, in Bingham County, was approximately $145,500, and its investment in land, buildings and machinery at the Gay Mine exceeded $1,644,000; that payments to local businesses amounted to $1,030,000; that its other purchases and sales exceeded $8,500,000; that for the year 1956 it paid over $130,000 in taxes; that nearly 1,000 employees and their dependents rely for their livelihood upon the operations of the Simplot plant, and that it has an annual payroll of more than $1,242,000.

That it had spent $223,688.00 for a fume and dust control system which constituted only a part of the total moneys expended in its attempts to control dust and fumes; that only 0.1% of any dust which is emitted from its plant due to its operations is discharged from its stacks.

The record amply indicates that the Simplot Company's operation, involved in this proceeding, constitutes a lawful business, which in nowise can be regarded as a nuisance per se. Rowe v. City of Pocatello, 70 Idaho 343, 218 P.2d 695; White v. City of Twin Falls, 81 Idaho 176, 338 P.2d 778; that if it is a nuisance, it is per accidens, McNichols v. J. R. Simplot Co., 74 Idaho 321, 262 P.2d 1012.

Equity will not entertain jurisdiction where there is an adequate remedy at law. Presley v. Dean, 10 Idaho 375, 79 P. 71; School District No. 25 v. Rice, 11 Idaho 99, 81 P. 155; Garrett Transfer & Storage Co. v. Pfost, 54 Idaho 576, 33 P.2d 743. In Roy v. Chevrolet Motor Car Co., 262 Mich. 663, 247 N.W. 774, 776, the Supreme Court of Michigan, quoting from Fox v. Holcomb, 32 Mich. 494, said:

'Avoiding multiplicity of suits is not a conclusive reason for intervention of equity. In the instant case literal application may well be made of the following statement by Chief Justice Graves in Fox v. Holcomb, 32 Mich. 494: 'So far as we can judge from the record, a mode of redress so radical would operate against the interests of all parties and eventuate not only in great public inconvenience, but with a pecuniary severity upon the interests of the defendants entirely disproportionate to the nature and extent of the grievance of complainant Fox. Strict legal right, in contradistinction to what is equitable, is not a necessary criterion of equitable redress. A court of equity always endeavors to shape its administration of relief in such way as to avoid oppression or the entailment of consequences of unnecessary rigor.''

City of Harrisonville, Mo. v. W. S. Dickey Clay Mfg. Co., 289 U.S. 334, 53 S.Ct. 602, 77 L.Ed. 1208; King v. Columbian Carbon Company, 5 Cir., 152 F.2d 636; Johnson v. Independent School Dist. No. 1, 239 Mo.App. 749, 199 S.W.2d 421; Gerald Park Improvement Ass'n v. Bini, 138 Conn. 232, 83 A.2d 195, 197; Riter v. Keokuk Electro-Metals Company, 248 Iowa 710, 82 N.W.2d 151.

The comparative benefits and hardships should be weighed in determining whether injunction is the appropriate remedy under the facts and circumstances in a particular case. Hansen v. Independent School District No. 1, 61 Idaho 109, 98 P.2d 959; McCarthy v. Bunker Hill & Sullivan Mining & C. Co., 9 Cir., 164...