 |
 |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|
|
|
|
City of Chicago v. Beretta U.S.A. Corp.11/18/2004
R>
"The interference with a public right is the sine qua non of a cause of action for public nuisance. However, not all interferences with public rights are public nuisances. The nuisance must affect an interest common to the general public, must produce a common injury , or be dangerous or injurious to the general public, or it must be harmful to the public health, or prevent the public from a peaceful use of their land and the public streets, or there must be some direct encroachment on public property." 58 Am. Jur. 2d Nuisances §39 (2002).
Further,
"A public right is one common to all members of the general public. It is collective in nature and not like the individual right that everyone has not to be assaulted or defamed or defrauded or negligently injured." Restatement (Second) of Torts §821B, Comment g, at 92 (1979).
In Ganim v. Smith & Wesson Corp., 258 Conn. 313, 780 A.2d 98 (2001), the Supreme Court of Connecticut resolved a case similar to the present case on the threshold question of whether the plaintiff mayor and city had standing to assert a claim of public nuisance. Ganim, 258 Conn. at 343-44, 780 A.2d at 117. The Connecticut court also commented that:
" `Nuisances are public where they violate public rights, and produce a common injury , and where they constitute an obstruction to public rights, that is, the rights enjoyed by citizens as part of the public. ... f the annoyance is one that is common to the public generally, then it is a public nuisance. ... The test is not the number of persons annoyed, but the possibility of annoyance to the public by the invasion of its rights. A public nuisance is one that injures the citizens generally who may be so circumstanced as to come within its influence.' " Ganim, 258 Conn. at 369, 780 A.2d at 131-32, quoting Higgins v. Connecticut Light & Power Co., 129 Conn. 606, 611, 30 A.2d 388, 391 (1943).
The Connecticut court acknowledged that the definition of a common law public nuisance might be "capacious enough" to encompass the plaintiffs' complaint: "One might well say that the harms alleged by the plaintiffs to have been caused by the defendants' conduct are harms that injure the citizens of Bridgeport who may be so circumstanced as to come within the influence of that conduct." Ganim, 258 Conn. at 370, 780 A.2d at 132. One might also say, however, that the harm alleged was harm to individual members of the public, not to the public generally.
In the second amended complaint, plaintiffs describe the harms that they allege result from the possession and use of illegal firearms in the city of Chicago : "a higher level of crime, death and injuries to Chicago citizens, a higher level of fear, discomfort and inconvenience to the residents of Chicago, and increased costs to the plaintiffs to investigate and prosecute crimes caused by the illegal possession and use of the firearms brought into Chicago."
Leaving aside for a moment the costs incurred by plaintiffs, which we determine, below, are not recoverable as damages, we query whether the public right asserted by plaintiffs is merely an assertion, on behalf of the entire community, of the individual right not to be assaulted. See, e.g., Restatement (Second) of Torts §821B, Comment g, at 92 (1979) (a public right is "not like the individual right that everyone has not to be assaulted"). We are also reluctant to recognize a public right so broad and undefined that the presence of any potentially dangerous instrumentality in the community could be deemed to threaten it.
By posing this question, we do not intend to minimize the very real problem of violent crime and the difficult tasks facing law en
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 Illinois Personal Injury Attorneys
Personal Injury Lawyers
|
| |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|