It’s the Law: ‘Chicken Man’ tackles feathered nuisance

Some years ago, my wife, Renae, put our baby daughter in a pack and went to take a walk. But pecking and pooping peacefully upon our lawn was a flock of common domestic fowl whose mortal enemy is a colonel in Kentucky.
As Renae attempted to skirt the flock, a rooster started to stalk her and our baby. Renae decided not to risk the beast attacking with our daughter in tow, so she began a retreat back to the house. The rooster, however, would have nothing of retreat and attacked anyway. Renae broke into a run hollering for me: Chicken Man.
In defense of child and wife, I ran forthwith into battle. In this corner, weighing 170 pounds: Gary “Rube” Redenbacher. In that corner, weighing 5 pounds: Chicken.
The bird charged. I glanced furtively about to see if anybody would notice if I beat a hasty retreat. Unfortunately, Renae was watching with one of those “my hero” looks. I had to stick it out.
I planted a size 10 on the chicken’s beak. It knocked him back a couple of feet, but he didn’t hesitate even a second in attacking again with even more fury, talons flying. A second swat slowed him down, but back he came.
The third boot snapped his noggin over like a bobblehead, but did he run off? No. He calmly walked back and forth, just out of foot’s reach, as if to say, “No big deal, this ain’t over.”
As the varmint coolly strutted back to the neighbor’s yard from whence he had come, I realized that I had torn my hamstring kickin’ the chicken. I had been humiliated by what the colonel cooks.
Although there are vague references to roosters in both the Scotts Valley and county codes, problems such as attacking roosters are better subsumed under a concept in law called “nuisance.”
There are two types of nuisance: public and private. A private nuisance is an interference with a person’s interest in the use and enjoyment of his land. A public nuisance is an interference with the common right of the general public. It can be an unreasonable interference with the health, safety, peace, or comfort of the community. Thus, if my neighbor’s rooster was terrorizing more than just my hamstring and family, it would become a public nuisance.
Nuisance can apply to a very broad spectrum of issues. In one instance, I applied the concept when a person barricaded an alley where the general public had walked for nearly 100 years.
Excessive noise frequently elicits a nuisance claim. In recent years, the concept has been used to evict drug users and dealers.
Since, however, nuisance can be so broad, it has riddled the courts with exceptions and vagaries. Indeed, the foremost luminary on civil wrongs (“torts” in legal parlance), William Prosser, wrote, “There is perhaps no more impenetrable jungle in the entire law than that which surrounds the word nuisance.”
One can see why such a jungle would grow, because what is one man’s treasure is another man’s bane. Many people, for example, view bamboo as a beautiful plant. The running variety, however, sends rhizomes that will invade a neighbor’s yard, sending up new shoots. Is the bamboo a nuisance or simply a welcome addition to the landscaping? It depends on your perspective.
Enormous battles have erupted where developers have built homes next to farms. For some reason, the homeowners have taken exception to the aromas that waft from such operations. Is a farm a nuisance?
Nuisance lawsuits threatened farmers with extinction. So, California enacted a law to protect them from urbanites who flee the city to bucolic settings like Scotts Valley and San Lorenzo Valley, only to find that horse droppings don’t agree with their vision of paradise. Although there are exceptions, commercial farms cannot be considered a nuisance.
Because the farm cannot be sued for nuisance, enterprising lawyers have turned to the developers, claiming negligence. That subject, however, is for another day.
What of that low-down, conniving, bloodthirsty rooster across the street? My neighbor had been less than responsive to my entreaties to roast the beast, but before I could even consider a nuisance lawsuit, a fox made rooster nuggets out of him. The colonel would have been proud.
• Gary Redenbacher of Scotts Valley is an attorney in private practice. Contact him at [email protected].