Abnormal neighborhood disturbances: professionals are protected!

Neighborhood conflicts give rise to many legal disputes. Many of them relate to complaints lodged by individuals against companies (factories, bars, restaurants, nightclubs, farms, etc.) located near their homes, which they accuse of being the source of nuisances (noise, odors, smoke, presence of insects, etc.) constituting abnormal neighborhood disturbances.

As such, the public authorities have just passed a law on abnormal neighborhood disturbances. This law first establishes the principle that the person who is at the origin of a disturbance exceeding the normal neighborhood annoyances is automatically liable for the resulting damage. Thus, from now on, civil liability for abnormal neighborhood disturbances is expressly defined by law, which was not the case until now, as only the courts refer to this notion.

Existence of economic activity before the newcomer settles in

This law spares professionals, especially farmers, from being liable for abnormal neighborhood disturbance where their activity existed before the installation of a newcomer, provided that this activity complies with the laws and regulations, and it has continued under the same conditions or under new conditions that are not the cause of an aggravation of the abnormal disturbance.

In other words, the person who sets up near a business or a farm cannot reproach the latter for causing him or her an abnormal neighborhood disturbance (one thinks of the crowing of a rooster, the odors emitted by a farm, or the noise generated by machinery) as long as the nuisance of which he or she complains already existed when he or she set up.

The case of agricultural activities

The law contains an additional provision specific to farmers by providing that they cannot be held liable for abnormal neighborhood disturbance where, after the installation of a newcomer who complains, they have had to bring their activity into compliance with the regulations or when the nature or intensity of their activity has not been substantially modified.

Note: It will be up to the judge, in the event of a dispute relating to the modification, invoked by the plaintiff, of the activity that has led to an abnormal neighborhood disturbance, to determine whether this modification is substantial.