The Shelburne, Inc. v. Crossan Corp.
| Decision Date | 26 November 1923 |
| Docket Number | No. 53/267.,53/267. |
| Citation | 122 A. 749 |
| Parties | THE SHELBURNE, Inc. v. CROSSAN CORPORATION et al. |
| Court | New Jersey Court of Chancery |
Suit by the Shelburne, Incorporated, against the Crossan Corporation, the R. C. Maxwell Company, and others. Decree for complainant against defendant Maxwell Company advised.
Louis E. Stern, of Atlantic City, for complainant.
Thompson & Hanstein and Emerson L. Richards, all of Atlantic City, and Hervey S. Moore, of Trenton, for defendants.
The complainant is the owner of and conducts a large hotel known as the Shelburne, situate on the Boardwalk at Michigan avenue, in Atlantic City. This hotel has been operated at this location for many years, and has recently been greatly enlarged by the addition of a brick, concrete, and steel structure of 121 rooms. About 60 of these are bedrooms, having southerly or southwesterly exposure. The defendant Crossan Company is the owner of property immediately adjoining to the southwestward of the Shelburne property, upon which is erected an apartment house, the roof of which is rented by that company to the defendant, R. C. Maxwell Company for sign purposes. The defendant Maxwell Company, being in the business of building and operating signs, entered into a contract with the defendant Colgate Company agreeing to furnish and operate for Colgate Company a sign in Atlantic City, not specifying the location. In compliance with said contract it has erected and operated a sign constructed of angle irons, wire conduits, receptacles, and lamps, which, with the understructure and supports of heavy beams, weighs about 20 tons. The sign is 66 feet high and 72 feet long. Upon and composing the lettering and ornamentation of this sign are 1,084 15-watt lights, all of which are colored, 6 100-watt lights, and 28 75-watt lights. The latter are used for the indirect lighting of a figure of a thermometer on the sign. All the lights on the sign are steady-burning, and without speed effect. This location has been under the control of the Maxwell Company for sign purposes for a number of years, and has been used by it for at least three other signs (advertising other products). It has been testified that the lights in the present sign are only about 10 per cent. in power of at least one of the previous signs.
The new wing of the Shelburne is at or nearly at right angles to the Boardwalk, and the sign is practically parallel with the wing, and about 110 feet southwesterly therefrom. The face or front of the sign is toward the Shelburne, and the lights therefrom shine into some of the bedrooms in the new wing of the hotel. The sign in question is illuminated or operated from the "time it begins to be dark until about 12 o'clock" (at the time of the hearing, daylight saving time). J. Haines Lippincott, a witness produced on the part of the complainant, testified that he visited the Shelburne after 12 o'clock the night before he gave his testimony, and the lights of the sign were then burning. It is testified that this sign "lights up the entire room of 40 or 45 rooms of the new wing of the hotel, and thereby disturbs the guests, and by reason thereof lowers the value of those rooms, and thereby seriously affects detrimentally the business of the complainant."
The complainant admits that for the purpose of dancing and other amusement of its guests it provides an orchestra composed of six pieces, including a piano and drums. This orchestra plays and dancing is permitted (and indulged in) until about 12 o'clock at night in a room known as the "Orange Room," which is "directly under the part of the new wing which is nearest to the Colgate sign."
Some time before the new wing was built, which was completed in July, 1922, a bill was...
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Martin v. Williams, 10758
...we find few in which the sole question at issue was the casting of lights upon another person's premises. In The Shelburne, Inc., v. Crossan Corporation, 95 N.J.Eq. 188, 122 A. 749, an injunction was issued prohibiting the use after midnight of an electric sign which cast light on plaintiff......
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... ... Ober, 12 Cush. 493, 495, a business long subject to ... regulation. As was said in Packer Corp. v. Utah, 285 ... U.S. 105, 110, 52 S.Ct. 273, 274, 76 L.Ed. 643, 79 A.L.R ... 546, quoting ... 815] Nugent v ... Melville Shoe Corp., 280 Mass. 469, 182 N.E. 825; ... Shelburne, Inc., v. Crossan Corp., 95 N.J.Eq. 188, ... 122 A. 749. Within reasonable limits, that which may ... ...
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...another may, in some circumstances, constitute a nuisance remediable by injunction or suit for damages. (E.g., The Shelburne, Inc. v. Crossan Corp., 95 N.J.Eq. 188, 122 A. 749; Nugent v. Melville Shoe Corp., 280 Mass. 469, 182 N.E. 825; National Refining Co. v. Batte, 135 Miss. 819, 100 So.......
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...element of an offensive character constitutes a nuisance, is the case of The Shelburne, Inc. v. Crossan Corporation, [95 N.J. Eq. 188, 122 A. 749 (1923)]. The plaintiff was the owner of a large hotel on the board walk in Atlantic City which had been operated in the same location for many ye......