When is noise so irritating that a Court will Order it be stopped? The answer is sometimes -but not often. I think not often enough.
This issue recently arose in a Mahwah New Jersey case involving a fire siren that sounded day and night. The decibel levels were agreed to be very high. And according to the police chief, other means of notifying fire fighters such as pagers may have been equally effective.
However the appeals court found that the plaintiff homeowners had not demonstrated that the noise was sufficiently unreasonable to be a legal nuisance. The court explained that a noise must interfere with the use and enjoyment of a neighboring property and it must be unreasonable to be considered a legal nuisance.
In this case, even though experts addressed the possible alternative means of notifying firefighters other than noisy sirens, the court was not convinced that the sirens were unreasonable.
The court noted that another ranking police officer was less certain that the sirens could be eliminated and observed that the hilly terrain made cellular and pager technology less reliable.
The court considered a similar New Jersey case form Atlantic County which concluded that the affected property owners would have to suffer the siren noises so that the entire community could be safe.
Condominiums have frequent noise complaints. Often the management or the Board should intervene to determine if some resolution is possible.
But when it is not, judicial relief may be an option.
Just note that experts may be required to carefully prove each component of these cases.
Showing merely that the noise is "loud" will probably not do the trick.
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