119 Unsightly

"119 unsightly sixteen-foot spite fence four feet from his neighbor’s windows, Metzger v. Hochrein , 107 Wis. 267 (1900), the legislature enacted a law specifically defining a spite fence as an actionable private nuisance. 5 Thus a landowner’s interest in sunlight has been protected in this country by common law private nuisance law at least in the narrow context of the modern American rule invalidating spite fences. This court’s reluctance in the nineteenth and early part of the twentieth century to provide broader protection for a landowner’s access to sunlight was premised on three policy considerations. First, the right of landowners to use their property as they wished, as long as they did not cause physical damage to a neighbor, was jealously guarded. Metzger v. Hochrein , 107 Wis. 267, 272 (1900). Second, sunlight was valued only for aesthetic enjoyment or as illumination. Since artificial light could be used for illumination, loss of sunlight was at most a personal annoyance which was given little, if any, weight by society. Third, society had a significant interest in not restricting or impeding land development. Dillman v. Hoffman , 38 Wis. 559, 574 (1875). This court repeatedly emphasized that in the growth period of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries change is to be expected and is essential to property and that recognition of a right to sunlight would hinder property development. The court expressed this concept as follows: As the city grows, large grounds appurtenant to residences must be cut up to supply more residences…. The cistern, the outhouse, the cesspool, and the private drain must disappear in 5 The legislature specifically overruled Metzger , ch. 81, Laws of 1903; sec. 280.08 Stats. 1925. Cf. Steiger v. Nowakowski , 67 Wis. 2d 355 (1975)."