## Facts

- Robert Williams, Sr. owned and operated an automobile-repair and body shop on property adjoining land owned by Monsanto Company, which operated a chemical plant.
- For several months in 1984, Monsanto’s plant occasionally emitted airborne particulate matter that drifted onto Williams’s premises and “dusted” vehicles parked there.
- Williams claimed the particulate caused pitting of paint on customers’ automobiles and that customer dissatisfaction led to lost customers and reduced income.
- Monsanto identified the particulate as sodium tripolyphosphate (STP) and presented evidence that STP did not pit automobile paint.
- The area surrounding the properties was largely industrial, and no other nearby business reported paint pitting or similar operational problems tied to the emissions.
- Monsanto spent about $500,000 investigating, identifying, and correcting the source of the particulate leak, cooperated with government officials, and offered to have dusted vehicles washed at Monsanto’s expense.
- Monsanto introduced evidence that Williams’s business was already in financial difficulty before the emissions, including the loss of a major customer.
- Williams sued Monsanto on multiple theories; by trial, he pursued trespass and private nuisance seeking economic-loss damages, and he also attempted to introduce evidence of physical and mental suffering (including heart-related problems) allegedly caused by the stress of business losses.
- At the close of the evidence, the trial court directed a verdict for Monsanto on trespass, submitted nuisance to the jury, and excluded the proffered evidence of physical and mental suffering. The jury returned a verdict for Monsanto on nuisance.

## Issues

1. Whether the trial court erred in directing a verdict for Monsanto on Williams’s trespass claim based on particulate emissions settling on Williams’s property.
2. Whether the trial court erred in denying Williams judgment as a matter of law or a new trial on nuisance after the jury found for Monsanto.
3. Whether the trial court erred by excluding evidence of Williams’s physical and mental suffering (including heart-related problems) offered as an element of damages.

## Decision

- The Missouri Court of Appeals (Eastern District, Division Three) affirmed the judgment for Monsanto.
- The court held the trial court properly removed the trespass claim from the jury because the proof did not show an actual interference with Williams’s possession of the land as required for trespass in a pollution/particulate case.
- The court held the defense verdict on nuisance was supported by the evidence, including disputes over the nature and effect of the particulate, the industrial setting, Monsanto’s remedial actions, and Williams’s preexisting business problems.
- The court upheld the exclusion of evidence of Williams’s physical and mental suffering because those injuries were consequential to alleged economic loss and not a proper measure of damages in this property-based nuisance/trespass action.

## Legal Principles

- In Missouri pollution and particulate cases, trespass requires a level of invasion that amounts to an actual interference with possession of the land, not merely an effect on use and enjoyment.
- Private nuisance requires proof of an unreasonable use of the defendant’s property that causes a substantial interference with the plaintiff’s use and enjoyment of land; when the evidence conflicts, reasonableness and substantiality are typically questions for the jury.
- A directed verdict is proper when the plaintiff’s evidence, viewed most favorably to the plaintiff, still fails to make a submissible case on an essential element.
- Appellate review of a jury verdict on nuisance asks whether substantial evidence supports the verdict; the jury may accept or reject competing causation and damage evidence.
- Damages in nuisance and trespass actions focus on property interests (including loss of use and enjoyment and related property-based harm); personal physical or emotional harm claimed to flow from business stress is generally too remote as a consequential element in this setting.

## Conclusion

The court affirmed for Monsanto because the intermittent dusting of Williams’s premises did not rise to a trespass (no actual interference with possession), the jury could reasonably find no actionable private nuisance in light of the disputed proof and industrial context, and the trial court properly excluded evidence of Williams’s stress-related physical and mental suffering as consequential to alleged economic loss rather than a recoverable item of damages in this property tort action.


Williams v. Monsanto Co., 856 S.W.2d 338 (1993)