## Facts

- Homeowners living near a church sought to stop the church from playing an electronic carillon that broadcast bell music into the neighborhood.
- The carillon played brief musical segments at set times: three times daily and four times on Sundays, for about four minutes each.
- Plaintiffs alleged the sounds interfered with their use and enjoyment of their home, worsened the wife’s medical conditions, and disturbed their child who had a neurological illness.
- Plaintiffs claimed the bells disrupted conversation and caused anxiety and emotional stress, characterizing the conduct as a private nuisance and an invasion of privacy.
- The church attempted to reduce the impact by moving speakers, shortening playing time, and lowering volume and intensity, but plaintiffs demanded the playing stop entirely.
- Plaintiffs conceded ordinary village and traffic sounds sometimes drowned out the bells; no other neighbors (including closer ones) complained.
- Plaintiffs also argued the broadcasts infringed religious freedom, although the carillon played music without words and did not transmit preaching or messages.
- The case was submitted on written proof; neither side requested a hearing and no material factual dispute was identified.

## Issues

1. Whether the church’s operation of the carillon constituted a private nuisance by unreasonably interfering with plaintiffs’ use and enjoyment of land under an ordinary-person standard rather than a standard keyed to special sensitivities.
2. Whether broadcasting nonverbal music into the neighborhood constituted an actionable invasion of privacy or an infringement of plaintiffs’ religious freedom.

## Decision

- The court denied injunctive relief and granted the church’s motion to dismiss the complaint.
- The court held the carillon did not constitute a private nuisance because the claimed harm depended on plaintiffs’ and their child’s special medical sensitivities rather than effects on an ordinary person in the community.
- The court rejected the invasion-of-privacy and religious-freedom theories because nonverbal music did not compel religious participation or unlawfully intrude upon plaintiffs’ rights.
- The limited duration and frequency of the music, the masking effect of ordinary community noise, the lack of other complaints, and the church’s mitigation efforts supported the conclusion that the practice was reasonable in context.

## Legal Principles

- A private nuisance requires an unreasonable interference with the use and enjoyment of land measured by the effect on an ordinary person in the same circumstances.
- Hypersensitivity or unusual susceptibility of a plaintiff (or household members) is not the measure of unreasonableness for private nuisance liability.
- Routine neighborhood sounds and reasonable uses of property are not enjoined absent objectively excessive intensity, frequency, or duration.
- Nonverbal music audible to neighbors, without coercion or proselytizing content, does not by itself establish an invasion of privacy or a violation of religious freedom.

## Conclusion

The court dismissed claims seeking to enjoin a church’s brief, regularly scheduled carillon music, holding that private nuisance is judged by an ordinary-person standard and that plaintiffs’ asserted harms tied to special medical sensitivities, without broader community impact, were insufficient; the related privacy and religious-freedom theories also failed.


Impellizerri v. Jamesville Federated Church, 104 Misc. 2d 620, 428 N.Y.S.2d 550 (Sup. Ct. Onondaga Cnty. 1979)