Neighbor’s Wood-Burning Stove Not a Nuisance

A private nuisance constitutes an interference with a person’s private use and enjoyment of their property. That principle was at issue in this case involving a dispute between neighbors.  The plaintiffs’ home was located 40-feet east of the defendants’ home. The defendant’s sole heat source was a wood-burning furnace. In 2008, the plaintiffs sued alleging that the use of the wood-burning furnace was a nuisance. They claimed the furnace generated smoke, soot, “noxious fumes,” and fly ash, which damaged their property, reduced its value and caused them physical injury.  In general, the plaintiffs claimed that the defendants were infringing on the use and enjoyment of their land. They asked for a permanent injunction to enjoin the defendants from using the furnace. 

At trial, the court found that the plaintiffs failed to prove a nuisance and refused to grant the permanent injunction. Generally, property owners are not to unreasonably interfere with their neighbor’s reasonable use and enjoyment of their property. Iowa law defines a nuisance as “injurious to health, indecent, or unreasonable offensive to the senses, or an obstruction to the free use of property.” Iowa Code §657.1 defines “emission of dense smoke, noxious fumes, or fly ash in cities” as a nuisance. 

The Iowa Court of Appeals considered the law and asked whether “normal persons living in the community would regard the invasion in question as definitely offensive, seriously annoying or intolerable.” Though courts in Iowa and other Midwest states have found smoke to be a nuisance, the appellate court did not find the plaintiffs’ evidence to be credible. The plaintiffs waited twenty years to bring their nuisance claim. When they did complain to the defendants, the defendants quickly took action and moved the furnace’s smokestack to the other side of the home. Further, though the plaintiffs did have health problems, they had both smoked for over 25 years. There was also evidence of animosity between the neighbors caused by other incidents, irrelevant to the furnace issue. The plaintiffs were unable to provide sufficient proof that the defendants’ use of a wood-burning stove constituted a nuisance in this case.  Haffner v. Clark, No. 0-692/10-0523, 2010 Iowa App. LEXIS 1537 (Iowa Ct. App. Dec. 8, 2010).