Millett v. Minnesota Crushed Stone Co.
| Decision Date | 10 September 1920 |
| Docket Number | 21,678,21,679 |
| Citation | 179 N.W. 682,145 Minn. 475 |
| Parties | ALICE MILLETT v. MINNESOTA CRUSHED STONE COMPANY |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
Original Opinion Filed April 30, 1920
ON MOTION FOR REARGUMENT.
Nuisance -- operation of quarry without negligence -- rights of habitation.
1. A landowner who has a deposit of limestone on his land may be liable for maintaining a nuisance, though he operates his quarry without negligence. Rights of habitation are superior to the rights of trade and whenever they conflict the latter must yield. Such a business must be conducted in such a manner as not to interfere materially with the health or physical comfort of people living in the neighborhood.
Nuisance -- measure of damages -- diminished rental or value of use.
2. A property owner, whose property is injured by a nuisance, may recover for the property damage sustained. This is generally the diminished rental value, if the property be rented, or the diminished value of the use if the property be used by the owner.
Recovery of damages by wife when husband owns the land.
3. Husband and wife cannot have separate actions for damages to property owned by one. This element of damage is recoverable only by the owner. In this action by a wife, the evidence was insufficient to show her ownership of the property during the period for which damages were recovered.
Recovery for discomfort or illness of owner or member of his family.
4. Either husband or wife, who owns the homestead, may recover for inconvenience, physical discomfort and illness suffered by such owner or any member of the family resulting from the nuisance. For this purpose the family is treated as a unit unless the facts be such as to give rise to a cause of action for personal injury. This element of damage is in addition to the diminished value of the use of the property.
On September 10, 1920, the following opinion was filed:
Motion for Reargument
Perhaps some of the language used in the two closing paragraphs of the subdivision 4 of the opinion was not sufficiently definite. In holding that the owner of property may recover damages predicated on "discomfort, annoyance or illness suffered by himself or any member of his family resulting from the nuisance," we followed the language used in Pierce v. Wagner, 29 Minn. 355, 13 N.W. 170, and Anderson v. Chicago, M. & St. P. Ry. Co. 85 Minn. 337, 88 N.W. 1001, on that point. The language of the opinion in those cases is general as is ours in this case.
Obviously it was not the purpose of the court, in those cases, to vest in one member of a family the right to enforce a personal injury demand accruing to another. In the former opinion in this case we made it clear that we have no such conception of the law or of the meaning of those decisions. Perhaps it...
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