| Venue: | Ct. App. NY |
| Facts: | A bunch of plaintiffs are disturbed by vibrations and particulate matter from the nearby cement factory. |
| Posture: | Decision for defendants (i.e., that there should be damages and not an injunction) at the trial court level. Appeal, and then appeal from the appellate division. |
| Issue: | Given that there are damages here, what is the proper remedy? |
| Holding: | Explicit: damages are the proper remedy for these litigants, and we
are not going to try and solve the problem of air pollution in general--
that's for the political process. Affirmed, basically.
Implicit: for small numbers of participants in nuisance suits, litigants can bargain in the shadow of the law (i.e., market decides). For truly large numbers, we resort to the political process. In between, which this is, the court can decide. |
| Rule: | The court can decide how the decision will be made. |
| Reasoning: | Historically, you just get an injunction in a case like this. But if we blindly follow that rule in this case, we'll do more harm than good. We can't put burden of solving this problem entirely on the defendant: this problem exists wherever cement is made, and affects the whole valley. |
| Dicta: | Dissent: this holding just compounds the problem. Air pollution is serious, and we should hasten the solution by imposing penalties that force the implementation of new technology. |