State v. Primeau
| Decision Date | 29 December 1966 |
| Docket Number | No. 38654,38654 |
| Citation | 422 P.2d 302,70 Wn.2d 109 |
| Court | Washington Supreme Court |
| Parties | The STATE of Washington, Respondent, v. Peter PRIMEAU and Irene P. Primeau, Appellants. |
Ziontz, Pirtle & Fulle, Robert L. Pirtle, Seattle, for appellants.
Charles O. Carroll, Pros. Atty., Neal J. Shulman, J. Robert Walker, Deputy Pros. Attys., Seattle, for respondent.
This struggle over pigs and dogs and their place in semiurban society, like most wars, has its roots in what went on before. When Irene and Peter Primeau moved to Kirkland in 1948 to ultimately rear a family of 14 children there on a 13-acre tract, they had little reason to worry about their neighbors. The rural atmosphere and open fields surrounding their home gave them ample privacy and freedom to live largely according to their own choice. They raised pigs, goats, dogs and other farm animals for several years without inciting any apparent animosity in their neighbors.
But times and districts change and, with the passing years, a steady influx of people altered the neighborhood from one of small tracts to that of a predominantly residential area. In 1958, King County adopted resolution No. 18801, zoning the district for single family residences (R--6), and prohibiting kennels and piggeries. The Primeaus continued to raise pigs and dogs, and people kept on coming into and building their homes in the district. Five years after the adoption of the zoning resolution (18801), two neighbors brought a suit for injunction to stop the Primeaus from raising pigs. The court issued a decree, which, while allowing the Primeaus to keep pigs in designated numbers, prescribed rather precise conditions of cleanliness for the care, feeding and maintenance of the animals, and ordered the pens sequestered from the ready sight of neighbors and travelers upon the adjoining road. The Primeaus took no appeal from this decree.
Battle was next joined when the neighbors brought civil contempt proceedings against Primeau for violating the decree. After a formal trial, the court issued a decree holding the Primeaus in contempt and they appealed. This court affirmed the finding of contempt, but reduced the fine from $500 to $100, and modified the decree insofar as it required the Primeaus to remove some lumber, crates and junked automobiles from their property. Mathewson v. Primeau, 64 Wash.2d 929, 395 P.2d 183 (1964).
The next campaign started with a skirmish in justice court when, on a mailed summons and complaint filed in the Northlake District Justice of the Peace Court for King County, the prosecuting attorney charged the Primeaus with one count of maintaining a public nuisance (RCW 9.66.010) by operating a piggery so as to permeate the neighborhood with obnoxious odors, and five counts of violating the zoning code by illegally operating a kennel on their property (resolution No. 18801).
From a judgment of guilty and $100 fine imposed on each of the six counts, the Primeaus appealed and had a trial de novo before a jury in superior court. Before submitting the case to the jury, the trial court dismissed counts three through six, and the jury returned a verdict of guilty upon the remaining counts one and two, on each of which the court imposed a fine of $100.
Defendants assign error to the conviction on count 1, a charge of maintaining in a residential district a piggery 'which permeates the district with obnoxious odors' in violation of RCW 9.66.010. They say RCW 9.66.010, the nuisance statute under which the charge is laid, is unconstitutional because it is too vague, indefinite, and uncertain to measure up to the constitutional requirements of a criminal statute.
One who challenges the constitutionality of a statute carries the heavy burden of demonstrating its invalidity beyond a reasonable doubt. Casco Co. v. Public Utility Dist. No. 1, 37 Wash.2d 777, 226 P.2d 235 (1951). An act of the legislature is presumed to be constitutional and valid and ought not be declared invalid unless it appears to be so beyond a reasonable doubt. Union High School Dist. No 1, Skagit County v. Taxpayers of Union High School Dist. No. 1, 26 Wash.2d 1, 172 P.2d 591 (1946).
Statutes purporting to denounce public nuisances are usually couched in general language, but if the wording apprises a person of common understanding of the conduct sought to be proscribed, then it is not too vague or indefinite to meet the constitutional tests. The language of RCW 9.66.010 as here invoked, does, we think, inform a person of ordinary understanding that one commits a public nuisance, i.e., a crime against the order and economy of the state, by committing any acts in an unlawful manner in such a way as to annoy, injure or endanger the comfort, repose, or health of any considerable number of persons. 1
The wording of the statute, although broader in at least one respect, seems largely declaratory of the common law, and, thus, for many years has been deemed sufficiently specific to define a nuisance to persons of ordinary understanding. Goodrich v. Starrett, 108 Wash. 437, 184 P. 220 (1919); State ex rel. Warner v. Hayes Investment Corp., 13 Wash.2d 306, 125 P.2d 262 (1942). Its language is neither more general nor less specific than the readily accepted common-law definition set forth in 1 Odgers, The Common Law of England 230 (10th ed. Broom 1911), which defines nuisance as:
Any unlawful act, which without any direct physical contact or interference endangers the lives, safety, health, comfort or property of the public, outrages public decency, or obstructs the public exercise or enjoyment of any right common to all His Majesty's subjects, is a common or public nuisance. * * * Blackstone, by a curious coincidence, lends a classical aura to the instant charge in describing the keeping of hogs as a nuisance thusly:
Also if a person keeps his hogs, or other noisome animals, so near the house of another that the stench of them incommodes him and makes the air unwholesome, this is an injurious nuisance, as it tends to deprive him of the use and benefit of his house. 3 Blackstone's Commentaries 217.
Although the charge must apprise a defendant with reasonable certainty of the nature of the offense, it is usually deemed sufficient if it enables him to prepare his defense and plead any judgment in bar to a subsequent prosecution for the same offense. State v. Hoyle, 114 Wash. 290, 194 P. 976 (1921). We conclude that the statute and count one are both sufficiently specific to apprise a person of ordinary understanding as to the nature of the crime charged and explicit enough to enable a defendant to interpose a judgment thereunder in bar of a second prosecution for the same offense.
Defendants also assign...
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