Hall v. Galloway

Citations

• 76 Wash. 42
• 135 P. 478
• 1913 Wash. LEXIS 1784

Syllabus

<p>Nuisance — Private Nuisance — Injury to Hotel Business — Actions. An action by a husband and wife for damages to the reputation of their hotel business, through improper acts by the defendants in securing rooms for immoral purposes, is an action for a private nuisance per se, under Rem. & Bal. Code, §§ 943, 944, defining actionable nuisances subject to actions for damages as including whatever is injurious to health, or indecent, or offensive to the senses, or an obstruction to the free use or enjoyment of property.</p> <p>Same — Complaint—Sufficiency. In such an action, the complaint states a cause of action when it alleges that defendants entered plaintiffs’ hotel with two females whom they falsely represented to be, and registered them as, their wives, securing rooms in which they indulged in lewd and disorderly conduct, to the annoyance of other guests and to the injury of the reputation of the hotel and business of the plaintiffs.</p> <p>Same — Complaint—Sufficiency. In an action by a husband and wife for damages to the reputation of their hotel business through immoral acts of the defendants amounting to a private nuisance per se, it is error to treat the complaint as one for injury to personal character and sensibilities resulting from slander, and to require the separation of the causes of action against the husband and the wife and the community, and to eliminate evidentiary matter constituting a plain statement of the facts and matter of inducement leading up to the actual commission of the nuisance.</p> <p>Same — Complaint—Special Damage. In an action for damages from a private nuisance, injurious to plaintiffs’ property, it is not necessary to allege special damages as in the case of the perpetration of a public nuisance.</p>