McClosky v. Martin
| Decision Date | 04 December 1951 |
| Citation | 56 So.2d 916 |
| Parties | McCLOSKY v. MARTIN et al. |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
Warren O. Windle, Fort Lauderdale, for appellant.
J. Luther Drew, Palm Beach, for appellees.
The plaintiffs below, appellees here, instituted suit in the lower court against the defendants below, appellants here, alleging that they were tenants of certain property in Palm Beach County, Florida, leased to them for the purpose of operating a restaurant; that the defendants, as their landlords by reason of a subsequent lease of the whole tract of land of which plaintiff's leased portion was a part, had erected on adjoining property a certain large sign, thereby cutting off the view of the restaurant building and its advertising signs from persons using the highway; that the sign had been erected out of spite and solely for the purpose of damaging their business and had actually damaged their business materially. They sought an injunction against the maintenance of this sign and a mandatory injunction seeking its removal so that it would not interfere with the public view of the plaintiffs' restaurant and its advertising signs, and thus not cause further damage to their business.
The defendants filed an answer denying in substance all of the material allegations of plaintiffs' Complaint. The lower court took testimony in the case and entered a final decree wherein he found from the evidence that the large sign erected by the defendants had caused substantial damage to the restaurant business conducted by the plaintiffs, but he also found that it would be inequitable to require the sign to be destroyed or removed. In lieu of this relief, he ordered an abatement of the rent prescribed and entered judgment for the amount of such abatement for the number of months past during which the sign had been in existence and ordered a further abatement of rent for so long a period of time as the sign remained in its present location.
Appellants appealed to this Court relying completely and solely, as they say, upon a question of law and that is, whether or not an adjoining property owner may use his property in any way he sees fit, regardless of whether he be a landlord of the tenant of the adjoining property or not, and regardless of whether such use may be or become a nuisance to the adjoining owner or not, in other words, whether or not one property owner had a right of view to a highway over an adjoining property.
Absent any inconsistent express covenants...
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...the best imaginable evidence adduced to support them. Applegate v. Barnett Bank of Tallahassee, 377 So.2d 1150 (Fla.1979); McClosky v. Martin, 56 So.2d 916 (Fla.1951); Larjim Management Corp. v. Capital Bank, 554 So.2d 587 (Fla. 3d DCA 1989); Damkohler v. Damkohler, 336 So.2d 1243 (Fla. 4th......
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...his property which is injurious to the ... property rights of an adjacent landowner and not be answerable [for it]." McClosky v. Martin , 56 So. 2d 916, 918 (Fla. 1951). There is "no exact rule or formula" for deciding when a neighbor's noise rises to the level at which a court will grant r......
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...a verdict or judgment when evidence is missing from the record-on-appeal. See Brody v. Brody, Fla.App.1958, 105 So.2d 378; McClosky v. Martin, Fal.1951, 56 So.2d 916; and Hall v. Davis, Fla.App.1958, 106 So.2d 599. A judgment being appealed is normally accorded a presumption of correctness.......
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