Meeks v. Wood

Decision Date06 February 1918
Docket NumberNo. 9446.,9446.
Citation118 N.E. 591,66 Ind.App. 594
PartiesMEEKS v. WOOD.
CourtIndiana Appellate Court

OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE

Appeal from Circuit Court, Randolph County; Theo. Shockney, Judge.

Action by Chaney F. Meeks against Martin F. Wood. From a judgment for defendant, plaintiff appeals. Affirmed.

Walter G. Parry, of Winchester, and Frederick F. McClellan, Donald D. Hensel, and Leonidas A. Guthrie, all of Muncie, for appellant. Carl Thompson, A. L. Nichols, A, L. Bales, and J. W. Macy, all of Winchester, for appellee.

IBACH, C. J.

This was an action brought by appellant against appellee to perpetually enjoin him from using a “barker” in the conduct of his business of operating an oil well on his farm which adjoins appellant's farm.

There was a trial by the court and judgment for the defendant. Appellant's motion for a new trial was overruled, and such ruling is assigned as error and relied on for reversal.

The barker is charged to be a whistle placed on the exhaust pipe of a gas engine which is used to pump oil from the well, and it is further charged that by the use of the barker loud and shrill sounds were produced which continued both day and night and could be heard for a distance of two or three miles; that they were especially noisy and disturbing in and about the appellant's house and premises, where they were so loud and shrill that appellant and his family were made sick and nervous, could not sleep, impaired their eating, interfered with their work, impaired the comfortable enjoyment of appellant's home and also depreciated the value of his farm. In short, it was a suit to enjoin and abate a nuisance.

The statute (section 291, Burns 1914) provides:

“That whatever is injurious to health or indecent, or offensive to the senses, or an obstruction to the free use of property, so as essentially to interfere with the comfortable enjoyment of life or property, is a nuisance, and the subject of an action.”

[1] There is some evidence of the existence of the acts complained of, but there is a conflict as to whether they are such as come within the provisions of the act supra. There is much evidence on the part of witnesses living in the immediate neighborhood that they were not awakened by the barker, nor disturbed by it. Some testified that the noise did disturb them somewhat when the barker was first put in use, but that they had become used to it and were no longer affected by it. In fact, this is the character of all the testimony, except that of appellant and those occupying his house with him. And as to them there is evidence tending to show that they were complaining of the same physical conditions and ailments when the well was not being operated, as are now claimed were produced by the use of the barker. There is some evidence from which it could be reasonably inferred that appellant was a man of nervous temperament and sensitive to things which were in any degree annoying or disturbing, especially to noises of the character complained of. In short, there was some evidence tending to show that appellant was not a person of ordinary sensibilities, and from which the court might readily conclude that he was abnormal in this respect. It also appears from the evidence that the use made of appellee's land was not different from the use made of other lands in the immediate vicinity as appellee was at that time only one of several farmers in the same locality who were developing their lands into oil fields and the others were using the same device, appellee's well...

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14 cases
  • Village of Wilsonville v. SCA Services, Inc., 52885
    • United States
    • Supreme Court of Illinois
    • May 22, 1981
    ...court stated: "Reasonableness is the standard by which the court should fashion its relief in ordinary nuisance cases, Meeks v. Woods, 66 Ind.App. 594, 118 N.E. 591 (1918), and reasonableness is also the appropriate standard for relief from environmental nuisance. Ordinarily a permanent inj......
  • Yeager & Sullivan, Inc. v. O'Neill, 3--873A100
    • United States
    • Court of Appeals of Indiana
    • March 26, 1975
    ...Stover v. Fechtman (1966), 140 Ind.App. 62, at 67, 222 N.E.2d 281 at 284, 9 Ind.Dec. 691, at 695. In Meeks v. Wood (1918), 66 Ind.App. 594, at 597--598, 118 N.E. 591, at 592, it is 'The law is well understood that every man has the exclusive dominion and right to the free enjoyment of his o......
  • Wernke v. Halas
    • United States
    • Court of Appeals of Indiana
    • September 28, 1992
    ......Sept. 28, 1992. Page 119.         Jeffrey K. Baldwin, Baldwin & Baldwin, Danville, for Roland E. Wernke.         Robert A. Wood, Kendall, Wood, Lowry & Kessinger, Danville, for John Halas and Karen Halas.         BAKER, Judge.         America's wise and ... Yeager and Sullivan, Inc., supra; Davoust v. Mitchell (1970), 146 Ind.App. . Page 121. 536, 540, 257 N.E.2d 332, 335; Meeks v. Wood (1918), 66 Ind.App. 594, 597, 118 N.E. 591, 592. The dispositive question "is whether the thing complained of produces such a condition as ......
  • Kentucky-Ohio Gas Co. v. Bowling
    • United States
    • Court of Appeals of Kentucky
    • May 26, 1936
    ...live and let live. ***' Powell v. B. & G. Furniture Co., 34 W.Va. 804, 809, 12 S.E. 1085, 1087, 12 L.R.A. 54, 55." Meeks v. Wood, 66 Ind.App. 594, 118 N.E. 591, 592. one has the right to use his own, (not even those engaged in the most industrious and worthy enterprises) so as to injure oth......
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