Earp v. Lee

Citations

• 71 Ill. 193

Syllabus

<p>1. Nuisance—what is a public or common one. A common nuisance is an offense against the public, by doing anything injurious to all the people generally, or by omitting to do that which the common good requires.</p> <p>3. Same—abatement thereof by private persons. In trespass for breaking and entering a house, and for tearing down and destroying the same, and taking and destroying personal property in it, the defendants pleaded that the plaintiff kept liquors in the house to sell, and did sell the same in less quantities than one quart, without a license; that he kept there a disorderly house; that persons of bad repute were allowed to assemble there, so that the house was a source of great annoyance to defendants, and that plaintiff threatened to sell whisky, etc., whereby it became and was a public nuisance, and, to abate the same, the defendants entered the house, and tore it down, and broke some glasses, boxes and beer kegs, and destroyed the contents thereof, etc., but did as little damage as possible in abating the nuisance: Held, that the plea presented no defense to the action.</p> <p>3. Nuisances which obstruct travel in public highways, in navigable streams, etc., may be abated by any citizen who is thereby incommoded, and the right of the citizen to abate nuisances is confined to that class of cases, and, even in such cases, it must be done without a breach of the peace.</p> <p>4. Same—how abated. The remedy for abating a public nuisance is by indictment, and not by removing it by force, without legal proceedings finding it to be a nuisance of that character. Neither the common law nor statute authorizes individuals to tear down and destroy buildings in which an unlawful business is carried on, nor does either permit the courts, on conviction, to have the buildings destroyed or abated, but the offenders are subject to punishment.</p> <p>5. Reversal as to one, must be as to all the parties. A judgment at law being a unit, if erroneous, is so as to all th