## Facts

- Two adjoining family tracts were devised to two brothers: “Forest Place” (Harold) and “Old Heirs Place” (Lever), with an old creek as the original boundary.
- A later public road roughly followed the creek but crossed the boundary in places, leaving Lever’s family owning a narrow strip between the road and portions of Harold’s tract, including areas directly in front of the Harold home and Jerry O’Cain’s home.
- For over forty years, a driveway crossed this strip to reach the Harold home; a prescriptive easement existed for that original driveway.
- Around 1986, Jerry placed a mobile home on the Harold tract with his father’s permission and made substantial improvements, including construction of a new driveway across Lever’s strip to access his residence (the “seven-year driveway”).
- Jerry testified he expended substantial sums on the home and improvements and believed permission had been obtained; Lever denied granting permission.
- During construction and improvements, the Lever family knew of the work and did not object.
- In 1994, after family disputes, the Lever family erected fencing blocking access to the seven-year driveway and placed hogs in pens on the strip directly in front of Jerry’s residence.
- The Harold family presented evidence that the hog pens caused severe odor, flies, visual offensiveness, and diminished enjoyment and market value of their nearby residences.

## Issues

1. Whether the Lever family was equitably estopped from denying an easement over the seven-year driveway constructed across their strip of land.
2. Whether placing and maintaining hog pens on the strip directly in front of the residences constituted a private nuisance warranting injunctive relief.

## Decision

- Affirmed the grant of an easement over the seven-year driveway based on equitable estoppel.
- Reversed the denial of injunctive relief on nuisance; the hog pens’ placement and maintenance constituted a private nuisance.
- Remanded for entry of injunctive relief consistent with the nuisance holding.
- Disposition: affirmed in part and reversed in part.

## Legal Principles

- Equitable estoppel may bar a landowner from denying a right-of-way when the landowner, with knowledge, silently permits another to construct and invest in improvements in reliance on apparent acquiescence, and the other changes position to their detriment.
- Equitable estoppel requires misleading conduct (including silence where there is knowledge and expectation of reliance), reasonable reliance by the claimant, and a prejudicial change in position.
- A private nuisance is an unreasonable and substantial interference with another’s use and enjoyment of property, judged by the effect on persons of ordinary sensibilities.
- A lawful use of land can constitute a nuisance when unreasonably located or conducted (e.g., causing substantial odor and flies near residences), particularly when less harmful alternatives exist and the chosen placement appears retaliatory.

## Conclusion

The court held that the landowners who knew of and did not object to construction and costly reliance on a new access route were equitably estopped from later blocking it, and that relocating hog pens immediately in front of neighboring residences in a manner causing substantial odor and flies was an unreasonable interference amounting to a private nuisance requiring injunctive relief.


O’Cain v. O’Cain, 322 S.C. 551, 473 S.E.2d 460 (Ct. App. 1996)