Wolcott v. Doremus

Citations

• 11 Del. Ch. 58
• 95 A. 904
• 1915 Del. Ch. LEXIS 38

Syllabus

<p>It is the duty of the Attorney General to seek, and of the court to grant, an injunction to prevent the continuance of a public nuisance which affects or endangers the public safety.</p> <p>Where the safety of the public traveling-a highway is endangered by shot used in' target shooting on the premises of a- club abutting a highway, the public nuisance thereby created may be enjoined.</p> <p>Evidence held to show such danger to those traveling a public highway from shot fired at targets as to constitute a public nuisance, subject to be enjoirfed.</p> <p>Where shooting at targets is shown in an application for a preliminary writ of injunction to endanger those traveling a public highway, the shooting may be enjoined even before the hearing on the merits.</p> <p>Although Act of the General Assembly approved April 14, 1891 (19 Del. Laws, c. 266, §1), makes it an offense to keep a gallery or other convenience for shooting at targets within three hundred yards of any highway, it does not affect the right of the public to have the nuisance incident to the shooting enjoined.</p> <p>The rule that preliminary injunction will not issue in the absence of a showing that irreparable injury will result from its refusal does not apply, where injury to the public results from a continuance of the nuisance sought to be enjoined.</p> <p>That a shooting club has for five years been permitted to shoot at targets and endanger the safety of those traveling a public highway and to expend large sums of money in building clubhouses, etc., does not show loches on the part of the public so as to bar the right to injunction to restrict the creation of further danger to the public, whose right to travel the public highways unmolested cannot be interrupted.</p>