75 Neb. 714 | Neb. | 1906
Oakdale is an incorporated village in the county of Antelope. In November, 1904, an ordinance was passed prescribing the limits within which no building or buildings should be erected in said village except of brick, stone or other incombustible material, and providing a penalty for the violation of such ordinance, and for the destruction or removal of any building or buildings constructed or repaired in violation of such ordinance. The ordinance contained a prohibition against the removal of wooden buildings to a lot within the prescribed fire limits. Bangs, the appellee, alleges in his petition that he is the owner of certain lots lying within the fire limits of the village of Oakdale, upon which he resides in a dwelling house of the value of $2,000; that there are other improvements upon the premises consisting of a barn, outbuildings, etc.; that appellant Dworak is the owner of the adjoining premises, also situated within the fire limits of the village, and that Dworak has purchased, and employed the appellant Blesh to move onto his premises, a frame building with a
The appellants insist that a court of equity will not lend its aid to enforce by injunction the by-laws or ordinances of a municipal corporation restraining an act, unless the act is shown to be a nuisance per se, and 1 High, Injunctions (4th ed.), sec. 788; St. Johns v. McFarlan, 33 Mich. 72; Phillips v. Allen, 41 Pa. St. 481; Attorney General v. Utica Ins. Co., 2 Johns. Ch. (N. Y.) 370, and Trustees of Waupun v. Moore, 34 Wis. 450, are cited in support of the proposition that a court of chancery has no jurisdiction to restrain the threatened violation of a village ordinance, unless the act threatened to be done, if carried out, will be a nuisance. It may be conceded that the municipal authorities and a citizen of the village who suffers no special damage from the violation of an ordinance cannot, ordinarily, have the assistance of a court of equity to enjoin a threatened violation thereof. The reason is plain. In the case under consideration the village authorities may, without judicial authority and on their own motion, tear down a wooden builing erected in'violation of an ordinance fixing the fire limits, and a private citizen, not specially damaged, may institute a proceeding to enforce the penalty provided by such ordinance. Lemmon v.
We recommend an affirmance of the decree appealed from.
By the .Court: For the reasons stated in the foregoing opinion, the decree appealed from is
Affirmed.