Sloss-Sheffield Steel & Iron Co. v. McLaughlin

• Decision Date: 01 June 1911
• Citation: 173 Ala. 76,55 So. 522
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court
• Parties: SLOSS-SHEFFIELD STEEL & IRON CO. v. MCLAUGHLIN.

55 So. 522

173 Ala. 76

SLOSS-SHEFFIELD STEEL & IRON CO. v. MCLAUGHLIN.

Supreme Court of Alabama

June 1, 1911

Appeal from Chancery Court, Jefferson County; A. H. Benners Chancellor.

Suit by Mrs. Mary McLaughlin against the Sloss-Sheffield Steel & Iron Company. From a decree overruling a demurrer to the bill defendant appeals. Affirmed.

Tillman Bradley & Morrow, for appellant.

Tomlinson & McCullough, for appellee.

SAYRE J.

Appellee filed her bill to abate a nuisance, a slag pile, deposited by the appellant so as to cover and obstruct all passing along two adjacent and parallel public streets leading from complainant's property, which fronts on both streets, to the business center of the city of Birmingham. The facts alleged are in every substantial particular the same as in the case of Sloss-Sheffield Co. v. Johnson, 147 Ala. 384, 41 So 907, 8 L. R. A. (N. S.) 226, 119 Am. St. Rep. 89. Showing her damage, to quote the bill, "complainant alleges that by reason of the obstruction of said portions of said avenues, and by reason of the more circuitous route therefrom necessary to be taken to approach her property, the value of her property is greatly impaired and injured, and she suffers thereby a special and particular damage beyond that suffered by the public in general by the obstruction of said portions of said avenues." An identical averment was contained in the bill in the Johnson Case. Counsel for appellant, criticising the decision in that case, and asking some recession therefrom, seem to treat it as placing the equity of the bill upon the mere fact that the obstruction there complained of drove complainant to a circuitous way, seeming to overlook the averment that the circuity of way was such as to greatly impair the value of complainant's property; but this last-mentioned averment was of material consequence, as going to show that complainant had suffered injury peculiar to herself, that is, injury in kind and degree different from that suffered by the public (Walls v. Smith, 52 So. 320), and it is entirely clear that such was the hypothesis of the court's conclusion that the bill contained equity. In this view of the case the question hardly requires further discussion. The mere circuity of travel caused by the obstruction is an inconvenience suffered in common by the complainant and all others having occasion to approach her property along these streets. But if the value of complainant's property has been diminished, that is an injury different in kind and degree from any suffered by the general public. True, it is to be gathered from the bill that the obstruction requires complainant to go only one block out of the way in passing between her property and the main parts of the city, and it may be that these blocks are of no very great length, for their length is not shown; but the averment is that this situation results in a depreciation of the value of her property. In the practical solution of questions of this kind, everything depends upon how far the obstruction may be away from complainant's property, what may be on the other side, and, in short, upon the relations developed by use between complainant's property and the trans-obstruction country. If complainant's property has been injured and its value diminished, as she alleges, she is entitled to the law's protection against the...