Civil Law: Torts and Damages

Art. 694 A nuisance is any act, omission, establishment, business, condition of property, or any thing else which:
1. injures or endangers the health or safety of others;or
2. annoys or offends the senses; or
3. shocks, defies or disregard decency or morality; or
4. obstructs or interferes with the free passage of any public highway or street, or any body of water; or
5. hinders or impairs the use of property

Nuisance: Lt. nocumentum or Fr. nuire (to harm, hurt, or injure)

Easement Against Nuisance

Art. 682 Every building or piece of land is subject to the easement which prohibits the proprietor or possessor from committing any nuisance through noise, jarring, offensive odor, smoke, heat, dust, water, glare, and other causes.

Who is the servient in an easement against nuisance?
Ans: The proprietor or possessor of the building or property, who commits the nuisance. The property or the land itself is the servient estate.

Who is the dominant in an easement against nuisance?
Ans: The general public, or anybody injured by the nuisance.

What are the rights of dominant estate?
Ans: If public nuisance:
a. prosecution under RPC or any local ordinance
b. a civil action
c. abatement, without judicial proceedings
If private nuisance:
a. civil action
b. abatement without judicial proceedings

While a true easement prohibits the owner from that which he could lawfully do where it not for the existence of the easement, a nuisance is something that is done or allowed unlawfully, whether or not a person has made a notarial prohibition.

Art. 683 Subject to zoning, health, police and other laws and regulations, factories and shops may be maintained provided the least possible annoyance is caused to the neighborhood.

Art. 2191 Proprietors shall also be responsible for damages caused:
a. by the explosion of the machinery which has not been taken care of with due diligence, and the inflammation of explosive substances which have not been kept in a safe and adequate place;
b. by excessive smoke, which may be harmful to property to persons or property;
c. by the falling of trees situated at or near highways or lanes, if not caused by force majeure;
d. by emanations from tubes, canals, sewers or deposits of infectious matter, constructed without precautions suitable to the place.

Types of nuisance: accdg. Civil Code
Public (common)- affects a community or neighborhood or any considerable number of persons (although the extent of annoyance, danger, or damage be unequal) Criminal proceeding may be used for abatement
- noisy of dangerous factory in a residential district

Private – that which is not public. Criminal proceeding is not a remedy.
- an illegally constructed dam partially resting on another’s estate.

Accdg. to manner of relief
1. those abatable by criminal and civil action
2. those abatable by only civil actions
3. those abatable judicially
4. those abatable extrajudicially