Bryant v. Sholars

Citations

• 104 La. 786

Syllabus

<p>Syllabus.</p> <p>1. A person who constructs a building upon his own property with windows in it upon the side facing his next neighbor’s property, so that the privacy of the latter’s residence is interfered with, cannot be made by his neighbor by injunction to close the windows. The latter’s remedy is to establish screens upon his own property.</p> <p>2. Where a person in constructing a wooden building on his property with windows in the side facing his neighbor’s property, places it so near the boundary line that a portion of its weather-boarding crosses that line over upon the neighbor’s property, the latter cannot on that account force the owner by injunction to close the windows in aid of the privacy of his establishment. He has the right to force the owner to move the building entirely back on his own property.</p> <p>3. Article 684 of the Civil Code which authorizes every proprietor adjoining a ’ wall to make it a wall in common by reimbursing the owner of the wall one-half of the value and one-half of the value of the soil upon which the wall is built, if the person who has built the wall has laid the foundation entirely upon his own estate, applies only to “walls” properly so called; it does not refer to enclosures in general; the Article was from public policy in aid of general interests for the safety and solidity of brick or stone buildings, not in aid of the right of one neighbor to secure the privacy of his property by restriction upon the rights of'ownership of his next neighbor. The side of a wooden building is not a “wall”. It may be made to give place to the right of the neighbor to have a wall built in lieu of it but under proper circumstances and conditions.</p> <p>4. One neighbor constructing a wooden structure on or near the line separating his property from that of his neighbor, with windows in the side facing the latter’s property, does so as an act of ownership and in subordination to the ultimate exercise by his neighbor of his own right