Also known as: public nuisance
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
An unreasonable interference with a right common to the general public. The interference qualifies as unreasonable when it significantly affects public health, safety, peace, comfort, or convenience, violates a statute or regulation, or produces a continuing or permanent effect that the actor knows or has reason to know will substantially impair the public right.
Midnight Jet conducts engine tests several times weekly near residential areas and public parks in City of B. The resulting noise and vibrations render schoolyards and parks unusable for outdoor activities and rattle windows in nearby homes for five years despite complaints. Residents including Emma sue, claiming the activity unreasonably interferes with rights to public recreation and peace shared by the community.
Hog Farm Partnership sprays liquid manure and maintains overflowing lagoons on fields bordering a public highway and lake recreation area. Strong odors and flies invade a rest area, campground, school grounds, and town parks multiple times each year, causing nausea and forcing cancellation of community events. Shop owner Cassandra, whose business depends on access to the fishing area, sues for damages arising from the interference with public rights.
Select any source to read its text and confirm it supports the definition.
A periodical regularly publishes malicious and defamatory articles that scandalize public officials and private citizens. The state seeks to abate the publication as a public nuisance under a statute targeting such periodicals. The publisher challenges the abatement proceeding as an unconstitutional prior restraint on speech.
Several Wisconsin cities and sewerage commissions discharge hundreds of millions of gallons of inadequately treated sewage daily into Lake Michigan. Illinois sues in the Supreme Court seeking abatement of the resulting pollution that affects public waters shared across state lines. The suit frames the ongoing discharge as a public nuisance requiring interstate relief.
American Electric Power and other utilities operate coal-fired plants that release large quantities of carbon dioxide and other pollutants affecting air quality across multiple states. Several states and private parties sue, alleging the emissions constitute an unreasonable interference with public rights to clean air and a stable climate. The defendants argue federal regulatory statutes displace any common-law public nuisance claim.
A radio station affiliated with Pacifica Foundation airs a monologue containing repeated indecent words during afternoon hours when children may be listening. The FCC issues an order finding the broadcast created a public nuisance by invading the privacy of the home and exposing the public to offensive material. The station challenges the order as violating the First Amendment.
The plaintiff must show an unreasonable interference with a right common to the general public. Factors supporting unreasonableness include significant effects on public health, safety, peace, comfort, or convenience, violation of a statute or regulation, and conduct that is continuing or produces permanent effects the actor knows will substantially impair the public right.
Supporting sources
A private plaintiff may recover damages only upon proof of special harm different in kind from that suffered by the general public. Economic loss unique to the plaintiff's business, such as near-total loss of seasonal revenue from customers deterred by odors and flies, satisfies the requirement when the public at large experiences only recreational inconvenience.
Supporting sources
No. Permits and economic contributions are relevant to the reasonableness inquiry but do not immunize conduct when the interference with public rights remains severe, prolonged, and unmitigated. Courts weigh these factors against the significance and duration of the impact on public comfort and convenience.
Supporting sources
…of Chief Justice Hughes Chapter 285 of the Session Laws of Minnesota for the year 1925[^maj-1] provides for the abatement, as a public nuisance, of a "malicious, scandalous and defamatory newspaper, magazine or other periodical." Section one of the Act is as follows: "Section 1. Any person who, as an individual, or as a member or…