## Facts

- Small farm owners in Polk County, Tennessee sued nearby copper-smelting companies for smoke damage to crops, timber, and the use and enjoyment of their homes and land.
- Defendants operated large smelting works using open-air “roast piles” that emitted substantial sulfurous smoke carried over surrounding properties.
- The smoke injured vegetation and reduced plaintiffs’ comfort and the productivity and profitability of their land.
- Plaintiffs sought primarily a perpetual injunction to restrain the smoke-producing operations, along with damages.
- The defendants’ operations represented major industrial investment and employment in the county, and stopping the smoke would effectively require shutting down the works.
- The trial court granted injunctive relief in whole or in part, and defendants appealed; the appeals were consolidated.

## Issues

1. Whether proven smoke emissions impairing nearby farms constituted a private nuisance warranting equitable relief.
2. Whether a court of equity should issue a perpetual injunction when doing so would effectively close a lawful, heavily capitalized industrial operation and cause large economic harm.
3. Whether damages are the proper remedy when the injury to plaintiffs is substantial but measurable and compensable in money.

## Decision

- The court accepted that defendants’ smoke caused real injury to plaintiffs’ property interests and amounted to a private nuisance.
- The court denied the requested perpetual injunctions because the injunction would, in practical effect, shut down the smelting works and impose disproportionate harm on defendants and the surrounding community.
- The court reversed the injunctive portions of the decrees and remanded for assessment and award of monetary damages to the landowners.

## Legal Principles

- Proof of a nuisance does not entitle a plaintiff to an injunction as of right; injunctive relief is discretionary in equity.
- In deciding whether to enjoin a continuing nuisance, equity may weigh comparative hardship, including the scale of harm to the defendant and broader public consequences.
- When an injunction would cause disproportionate economic and social loss relative to the plaintiff’s injury, and the plaintiff’s harm is compensable, damages may be awarded in lieu of injunctive relief.
- A lawful business activity may still create a nuisance, but the remedy may be limited to compensation where abatement would effectively destroy the enterprise.

## Conclusion

The court treated the smoke as a private nuisance but refused to issue a perpetual injunction because shutting down the smelters would inflict far greater harm on defendants and the community than the compensable injury to the farmers, and it remanded for damages as the appropriate remedy.


Madison v. Ducktown Sulphur, Copper & Iron Co., 113 Tenn. 331, 83 S.W. 658 (Tenn. 1904)