The Volokh Conspiracy
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Does Light Consist of "Object[s]"?
In HAC v. ER, decided in August by the Michigan Court of Appeals (Judges Sima Patel, Michael Riordan, and Brock Swartzle), petitioner had tried to get personal protection orders against his neighbors; the trial court rejected petitioner's claims, and the court of appeals affirmed.
Under the relevant Michigan law, such orders are generally issued when there's a finding of "stalking," which is defined as "continuing harassment," which in turn covers certain kinds of "continuing unconsented contact." Unconsented conduct is defined to include, among other things, "Placing an object on, or delivering an object to, property owned, leased, or occupied by that individual."
Petitioner alleged various incidents of alleged harassment; the court mostly concluded that he hadn't introduced enough evidence supporting each, but the analysis as to one category of incidents struck me as more legally interesting:
[T]he petition against ER [also] alleged that respondents "installed powerful spot lights that are aimed [at] [petitioner's] house," causing petitioner to "[b]lack out my windows so [he] can [s]leep." In his petition against AR, petitioner alleged that the spot lights "are aimed at [his] house." Petitioner testified that the exterior flood lights have shined on his home for the past five or six months before he filed the petitions. Specifically, the flood lights shine toward the windows of his home during the nighttime, or "[a]ll night, from dark." On at least one occasion, petitioner texted respondents to cease shining the lights toward his home. On another occasion, petitioner asked them in-person to "direct [the lights] away from [his] house."
At an unknown time and date, a "zoning officer" visited petitioner's house after petitioner complained that respondents were violating the lighting ordinance. Petitioner stated that the lights were still shining on his home as of the night of February 22, 2024. Several photographs were admitted into evidence, which showed the lights at respondents' house, how the lights shine on petitioner's home, and poster board and cardboard covering petitioner's windows….
[P]etitioner contends that the light from respondents' flood lights "consist[s] of 'packets of energy' which, while different in kind than a physical object, is no less an 'object' than any other object." However, except for providing one dictionary definition of "light," petitioner offers no other authority or rationale in support of this argument, so we consider it abandoned. In any event, we agree with the trial court that such allegations, if true, might constitute some type of "ordinance violations" but do not necessarily rise to the level of requiring a PPO….
The key here, I think, isn't that light isn't an object as a matter of physics; rather, it's not an object as a matter of law.
Say petitioner was upset at his neighbors barbecuing meat, and even claims that they are deliberately doing it to upset him. Smells certainly do stem from objects in the physical sense: If I smell something, it's because molecules from that thing reach the inside of my nose. Molecules from the barbecue therefore end up on the neighbor's property, and the barbecuers surely know that this will happen (and might even intend it).
But that doesn't count as trespass, and it wouldn't count for purposes of the protective order, either. On the other hand, if a tree on my land—a macroscopic feature rather than a microscopic one—grows over my neighbor's property, that is a trespass. The law draws a distinction here on the basis of practical and intuitive distinctions, not based on scientific ones.
If the smell unreasonably interferes with my neighbor's use or enjoyment of his property, it can be a nuisance—barbecuing probably won't be seen as unreasonable interference, though running a pig farm might—lighting that unreasonably interferes with a neighbor's use or enjoyment of his property can be a nuisance as well. But nuisance a separate tort, which requires a showing of unreasonable interference rather than mere physical presence. And, unlike placing an object on a neighbor's property, it probably wouldn't count as "continuing unconsented contact" for purposes of the statute.
