[MUSIC] Hi. I am thrilled to be welcoming you to our first class in an Introduction to Environmental Law and Policy. My name is Don Hornstein, and I'm a law professor here at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. And I really am happy to be bringing you this class. Because now at the beginning of the 21st century, I can't think of many other topics, other than protection of our environment that warrant our attention. I'm not a big fan of long-winded introductions, when I teach, I think we learn more by simply doing. So, my suggestion is we just jump into it. I assigned you two cases to read for today. And by the way, when I asked you to read cases and I post them online, you should know that these are cases that I've heavily edited. Shortened, to make them easy for you to read. Certainly they're way shorter, than the original opinions, the one finds in the law books, and some weeks, even when you do not have time for that, I will always post a summary, a super quick summary, in one minute or less of the readings for that session on something called the One Minute Lawyer. If at this point by the way for this very first class, you have not had time to read the cases, or even listen to the One Minute Lawyer between you and me, don't worry about it. You'll pick it up as we go along. One of the things that you might notice about these cases is that they're actual, simple disputes between neighbors. And a thought might be, what in the world does this have to do, with big, complicated questions of environmental policy? What does this have to do with things we ordinarily think of when we think about environmental problems like oil spills or climate change or endangered species? Here's a promise, if we're doing our job right, in about ten minutes time, you'll see the connection between these simple disputes between neighbors and how the law might intervene on environmental disputes. There's two things I wanna do with these cases. The first is, you'll notice, that in these disputes between neighbors, one neighbor is claiming to have been wronged. And the type of lawsuit they're bringing is called a tort action. A tort lawsuit, from the French tort, meaning wrong. And in particular, the plaintiffs, who are the people complaining, are claiming that the defendant, the people being sued, are maintaining something called a nuisance, which is a type of tort. So one of the things I want us to do with these cases is to unpack them and come up with a theory of exactly what is a nuisance. Or at least In general, what is a nuisance? But the other, even more important thing, is that we learn how to read these decisions, to understand how to read cases. When lawyers read cases what they're reading is really the published opinions of appellate courts reviewing decisions of trial courts, of lower courts. And this whole body of reported case law these cases is known as the common law. I want us to know how to read cases to understand the common law. In this case the common law of nuisance. All right, let's take a look at Albert versus Meadowbrook Swimming Club. When we are learning to read cases, one of the very first things we wanna do of course is make sure we understand who the cast of characters is. If this case the plaintiffs are homeowners. They live in the eastern United States, in the state of Maryland, in a residential area, in homes that seem to be on the sides of a hill. The plaintiffs are complaining about the defendants conduct. The defendant is a swimming club, the Meadowbrook Swimming Club. And the plaintiffs aren't complaining about the swimming, the plaintiffs are complaining that in the evenings, in the summer months the swimming club has dancing, and outdoor dancing and in particular has a jazz band, and amplifies the sound of the dance of the jazz band for the dancers, by putting them inside a type of shell. Well, that works only too well. And the music is so amplified, that it goes up and bothers the neighbors above. What does the court do? In this case, the court finds there to be a nuisance. And in doing so, points out that the neighbors aren't just annoyed. The neighbors are seriously interfered with. According to the evidence that the court finds to be true, these neighbors can't talk to each other because the noise was so loud. They can't sleep, they can't study, they can barely hear themselves think. And this occurs almost every night during the summer months. Until late at night, midnight. When you put all that together the intrusion is so substantial that the court finds there to be a nuisance. And issues something called an injunction to the dance club, telling them to put an end to it. First thing, I want us to do is use this case to figure out exactly what might be guideposts, to determine whether something is a nuisance or not. Let me give you some hypotheticals, and you tell me. If based on this one case, the Meadowbrooks Swimming Club case, if that was our only precedent, our only court case to look at, you'd think the hypothetical I'd give you would also be viewed as a nuisance. Here's hypothetical number one. Where I live, which is also a residential neighborhood in eastern United States, there used to be a neighbor right next to me who had a couple of dogs. And these dogs would bark, sometimes, in the night. And when they did bark it would annoy me. Sometimes I could hear them in the background and it would bother me a little bit. If I sued the neighbor for nuisance, do you think, based on Meadowbrook Swimming Club, that I'd win? Is that a nuisance? A couple of dogs barking definitely annoying me. What do you think? Most people, when they hear the dog hypothetical conclude that no, it would not be a nuisance, and I agree. There are a couple reasons for this. One of them is, that dogs are pretty common in neighborhoods, unlike a dance club and certainly unlike loud dance music. It's not something that really sticks out. Dogs aren't necessarily bad, and they're a common occurrence in neighborhoods. They're not something out of place. The other thing is that, I'm only annoyed. There's a big distinction between being a little annoyed at night for some reason and the type of systemic, long-term intrusion. Substantial interference, that the court found the plaintiffs were suffering in Meadowbrook. Here's a little wrinkle. What if I were to tell you that next door aren't just a couple of dogs, but there's 20 dogs? And these 20 dogs bark all the time. And that, that's highly unusual to have 20 dogs in a neighborhood. Do you think I might have a greater chance of claiming there's a nuisance? I won't answer that question. It's actually rhetorical. Try this hypothetical. What if the neighbors next door don't have any dogs? Instead, they get a different type of pet, an elephant, and they put that in their backyard. One, every so often the elephant raises it's trunk and makes an ear shattering trumpeting sound. It's so piercing it actually cracks the windows in my house next door. Not only that, but the elephant's so heavy that every time it walks around the backyard it shakes the ground and sets off the car alarm in my own car, which is parked just a few feet away. If I sue for nuisance, do you think I'd win? Most people would say yes and in doing so, we're not saying anything bad about elephants. Elephants are great. We're just saying that an elephant in a back yard like this, in a residential area is out of place. A very famous case referred to a nuisance as something that is simply out of place. It can be a good thing that's out of place, like a pig in the parlor. Elephant would be a pig in a parlor. Now it wasn't just out of place but it was causing substantial interference. It wasn't just dogs barking, it was window shattering, car alarms going off. Here's the last hypothetical. Every night one of my neighbors, a boy named Scott drives home from parties at night or from sometimes from his job late at night, after midnight, in his car. One of the things this young man has done is take the muffler on his car, which of course is designed to quiet the sound of the engine, and replace it with a loud muffler. Can you believe there are such things? Well, there are. And they're not all that uncommon. And they're put in by people who really like the loud sound that a car engine makes. Well Scott drives home outside my window every night after midnight. And that sound wakes me up. If I sue him a nuisance, you'd think I'd win? I'm gonna come back to the question of Scott in another lecture. But for right now, let me tell you that when I posed this hypothetical to the undergraduate students that I teach here at UNC. And also at Duke University, where I also teach this course. Overwhelmingly, they conclude it's not a nuisance. In part, because they know that these types of mufflers aren't that uncommon. And I'm not that inconvenienced by it. Let's look at the other case, Slaird versus Klewers. That other case, was one in which the Slairds, the plaintiffs, were complaining about the fact that defendants, the Klewers have put in a backyard swimming pool. In the backyard behind their house. Mrs. Slaird is claiming that the smell of the swimming pool, the chlorine smells, are affecting her plants, and she doesn't like to hear the sound of people splashing about. Sometimes they do so at night, and there's lights at night. And she thinks that's a nuisance. Does the court agree? It does not. It holds there's not a nuisance. Not only that, but it finds that, in fact, there's a problem, but the problem isn't the swimming pool. The problem is Mrs. Slaird. She's too sensitive. The court makes a point of noting that she doesn't get along with any of her neighbors. And, in the end concludes that it's really her own sensitivity more than any unusual action by the defendant that's the cause of her own problems. Held, not a nuisance. So the court doesn't order and injunction or order even the payment of damages. Which, by the way, are the two things a court can do, when it finds there to be a nuisance. What, if anything, does Slaird add to our understanding? Well, of course, to some extent it's good to have an example of something that's bothering someone that's found not to be a nuisance, to compare with the example of the swimming club. But for the other, it's worth noting that the court makes a point of saying that something won't be a nuisance if it's interference with one's use of property can really be a function of your own sensitivity, not the defendants conduct. And it's not hard to see how this might play on some environmental disputes. Consider for example this one. What if an organic grower, a farmer, who grows their crops without any conventional fertilizer or chemical fertilizers or pesticides suddenly finds their fields affected by a neighboring farmer, a conventional farmer, who does spray pesticides onto their land? But some of those pesticides drift over onto the organic farm. It the organic farm, sues the conventional farm for nuisance, do you think they might have a problem under Slaird? If you thought they might, you're on the right track. Because in fact the organic farmer might be viewed as unduly sensitive. Some of that might depend on how many other organic farmers there are, on the nature of the surrounding farm area in which they're found and so on. I can tell you, that this type of lawsuit is actually real, and the cases are actually split. About 50/50, on whether there's a nuisance or not. To summarize, at this point, if we're trying to generalize what a nuisance is, we should consider a couple of things. First of all, certainly it requires substantial interference with one's use and enjoyment of your own property. Not just annoyances or inconveniences, but substantial interference. And the second thing is that the defendant's conduct must be really out of place, it must be unreasonable given the surrounding norms of the community, so that the intrusion into one's own life is really unusual and unjustified, and out of keeping with the surrounding areas, like a pig in the parlor. Well that's enough. It summarizes roughly what a nuisance is. Next time, let's see how these insights might be applied to more classic environmental nuisances. See you then. [MUSIC]
