560 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



It therefore follows that courts still deal with nuisances largely from 

 the principles of the common law and it is a matter of serious doubt 

 whether, in any instance, specific legislative action ca'n be proven to 

 have any substantial value as an addition to the law of the subject. A 

 nuisance at common law is that class of wrongs that arise from unrea- 

 sonable, unwarrantable, or unlawful use by a person of his own prop- 

 erty, real or personal, or from his own improper, indecent or unlawful 

 personal conduct working an obstruction of or injury to a right of an- 

 other, or of the public, and producing such material annoyance, incon- 

 venience, discomfort, or hurt that the law will presume a consequent 

 damage. 



Text writers and legislative enactments state many variations of the 

 foregoing comprehensive definition from Mr. Wood's treatise on nuisances, 

 but there is no substantial disagreement as to what constitutes a nuis- 

 ance. Another definition, stated broadly as a general proposition, is 

 that every enjoyment by one of his own property which violates in an 

 essential degree the rights of another is a nuisance; and this substantial 

 violation of a right is the true test of a nuisance, for it is not every use 

 of his property by one which works injury to the property of another 

 that constitutes a nuisance. Injury and damage are essential elements 

 of a nuisance, but they may both exist as a result of an act or thing 

 which is not a nuisance, because no right is violated. On the other 

 hand, the pecuniary injury may be insignificent and the act or thing 

 causing them be such an invasion of the rights of another, or of the pub- 

 lic, as to constitute a nuisance for which an action for damages or for 

 abatement will lie. 



Nuisances are classified by the law as public and private, and there is 

 no authority for a third class called "mixed" nuisances. A nuisance is 

 public where it affects the rights of individuals as a part of the public, 

 or the common rights of all the community alike; a private nuisance is 

 one affecting a single individual, or individuals of a particular class, 

 group, or locality in a private right; the third class, referred to as 

 mixed nuisances, are public in their nature, but at the same time spe- 

 cially injurious or detrimental to one or more individuals in particular, 

 who suffer a different or greater hurt than the community in general. 



Nuisances are further divided into nuisances per se, or such as are de- 

 clared so by the common law or by some statute, without regard to 

 locality, surroundings, or circumstances, and nuisances per accidens, or 

 those owing their hurtful consequences to some particular attendant 

 circumstances, surrounding, location, or condition, without which they 

 would not be unlawful. There are other less important and rather 

 technical distinctions not necessary to be noticed here. The foregoing 

 preliminary and very elementary observations of the general law of 

 nuisances are necessary to a consideration of any subject with reference 

 to its existence as a nuisance or otherwise. 



It is also a frequent statement of the law, and may be accepted as au- 

 thoritative, that no lawful occupation or business is a nuisance per se, 

 except it be declared so by some special enactment prohibiting certain 

 things as objectionable to particular localities. So also the reasonable- 



