Roy v. Chevrolet Motor Car Co., 122.

• Decision Date: 04 April 1933
• Docket Number: No. 122.,122.
• Citation: 262 Mich. 663,247 N.W. 774
• Parties: ROY et al. v. CHEVROLET MOTOR CAR CO. STAFY et al. v. SAME.
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court

262 Mich. 663

247 N.W. 774

ROY et al.

v.CHEVROLET MOTOR CAR CO.

STAFY et al.

v.SAME.

No. 122.

Supreme Court of Michigan.

April 4, 1933.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Wayne County; Arthur Webster, Judge.

Two suits by John Roy and others, and by Stanley Stafy and another, doing business as the Hamtramck Wholesale Grocery Company, and others, against the Chevrolet Motor Car Company, a division of General Motors Corporation, to restrain defendant from continuing an alleged nuisance. From decrees dismissing each bill of complaint without prejudice to recovery in actions at law of damages sustained by plaintiffs, plaintiffs appeal.

Affirmed.

Argued before the Entire Bench, except BUTZEL, J.

Leon Dreifuss, of Detroit, for appellants.

Stevenson, Butzel, Eaman & Long, of Detroit, for appellee.

NORTH, Justice.

In these two suits, submitted and considered as one, plaintiffs seek to have defendant restrained from continuing an alleged nuisance. In each case the circuit judge decreed dismissal of the bill of complaint without prejudice to the recovery in suits at law of such damages, if any, as plaintiffs have sustained. Plaintiffs have appealed.

Plaintiffs, upwards of forty in number, allege that they own and occupy homes located on the easterly side of St. Aubin avenue and on Lumpkin avenue which parallels St. Aubin and is one block to the east, in the city of Hamtramck. St. Aubin avenue extends along the easterly side of defendant's property, which consists of a large manufacturing site occupied by tracks, buildings, etc., where defendant employed ten or twelve thousand men. Since 1917 defendant has continued to develop and enlarge its manufacturing plant. In 1928 it began to occupy and use a large building it had just previously constructed on the westerly side of St. Aubin avenue opposite the properties of some of the plaintiffs. In this building, which stands approximately two hundred feet west of the center line of St. Aubin avenue, is located defendant's forge plant, where it operates both day and night powerful steam hammers. In addition to other machines of like character, it here uses five 12,000-pound hammers in forging crank shafts. When in operation, each of these machines has a striking force of 120,000 pounds. These five hammers are installed on a concrete mat or foundation 160 feet by 32 feet and 6 feet deep. The operation of these huge machines produces noise and vibrations. Defendant, in ways which need not be detailed, attempted to overcome this objectionable feature. Finally, prompted at least in part by a desire to protect neighborhood property, defendant erected another building between its forge plant and St. Aubin avenue. This new building, used by defendant for tempering springs, and known as its spring plant, was of extra height and otherwise constructed in such a manner as would protect neighboring property from the noise and vibrations attending operation of defendant's steam hammers, or at least would reduce these features of defendant's operations to a minimum. This spring plant is adjacent to and extends along St. Aubin avenue approximately 640 feet, and is 137 feet wide.

Plaintiffs' original bills of complaint were filed before construction of the defendant's spring plant; and plaintiffs therein allege that the noise and vibrations caused by the operation of defendant's steam hammers constitute a nuisance, that it has resulted in serious physical damage to plaintiffs' buildings, has rendered them untenantable, has impaired the health of the occupants, has deprived them of sleep, and otherwise damaged them both in person and in property. In supplemental bills of complaint filed since the construction of defendants' spring plant, the plaintiffs allege that defendant operates approximately twenty-two fuel oil burning furnaces which throw off monoxide gas, a blue smoke, and noxious odors, and that, because of such gas, smoke, and odors, and also because of the noise from these oil burners operating practically twenty-four hours of each working day, the living conditions in plaintiffs' homes are greatly impaired, in that they are not able to open windows for ventilation, to sleep at night, or to dry clothes out of doors.

The voluminous testimony taken in the circuit court is in direct and emphatic conflict as to the extent plaintiffs' rights are invaded, if at all, in the manner alleged. The circuit judge, who visited the premises while defendant's plant was in operation, reviewed the testimony carefully, and in his opinion filed in the cause clearly intimates that in his judgment plaintiffs' claims are exaggerations, and that the vibrations of which plaintiffs complain ‘are not sufficient to amount to a severe inconvenience’; and he also found that plaintiffs had not established their claim of an alleged nuisance resulting from the use of the oil burners in defendant's spring plant. The circuit judge came to the conclusion that, notwithstanding the various grievances alleged by plaintiffs, they were not entitled to injunctive relief, and that under the circumstances of the case, if plaintiffs have in fact sustained damage in the manner alleged, they...