Trauma, Inequality, and Nuisance Law
Ariana Rokneddini & Ashley Rooney
In Randle v. City of Tulsa, three remaining survivors of the Tulsa Race Massacre filed suit against the City of Tulsa seeking an abatement of public nuisance caused by the City’s unreasonable, unwarranted, and unlawful acts and omissions stemming from events that transpired in 1921. In 1997, the Oklahoma Legislature passed the House Joint Resolution 1035, which created the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot Commission. The Commission was tasked with establishing a historical account of the racial violence that occurred in Tulsa’s Greenwood community from May 31 to June 1, 1921—events now known as the Tulsa Race Massacre. During this period, a white mob caused devastating destruction, killing an estimated 100 to 300 people, most of whom were African American, and destroying over 1,200 homes, schools, churches, and businesses. This violence continued and state and local authorities worsened the situation by arresting and detaining Black residents. Efforts by Greenwood residents to rebuild were actively obstructed by local officials who sought to prevent the reconstruction by amending the Tulsa building code to require costly fireproof materials. Thus, rebuilding became financially impossible for many.
More than a century later, on June 12, 2024, the plaintiffs alleged that the public nuisance created by the defendants during and after the massacre led to racially disparate treatment and city-created barriers to basic human needs for neighborhood residents. The plaintiffs further claimed that the defendants used the name “Black Wall Street”—a historic reference to the Greenwood neighborhood—in marketing campaigns to promote Tulsa as a tourist destination, without sharing any of the resulting benefits with the local community. The public nuisance claim was dismissed by the District Court, and the plaintiffs appealed to the Supreme Court of Oklahoma. The plaintiffs sought monetary relief for the generational social inequities that they endured and subsequent affirmative policies to minimize these inequalities that continued to persist within the community.
To address the conflict involved in this dispute, it is useful to look at the public nuisance doctrine and the indemnification standard set in Spur Industries v. Del E. Webb Development Company. In Spur Industries, a housing developer complained that a nearby feedlot operation rendered 1,300 residential lots unsellable, citing flies and odors from the ranch property as a public nuisance. A public nuisance is “one affecting the rights enjoyed by citizens as a part of the public…[and] must affect a considerable number of people or an entire community.” The Arizona Supreme Court held that the feedlot was a public nuisance because it affected the rights enjoyed by an entire community of people, rather than the private rights of a single individual or a definite small number of persons. The court reasoned that the presence of mosquitos and the pungent smell of manure posed a public health concern because the feedlots were only a short distance away from the residential lots.
When deciding whether the feedlot company could be indemnified in the public nuisance suit, the court ruled that “courts of equity may…go much further both to give and withhold relief in furtherance of the public interest than they are accustomed to go when only private interests are involved.” Because the housing developer knew that a feedlot was in operation before building and selling the residential lots, the court ordered the developer to compensate the ranch operator for the reasonable cost of moving or shutting down. Therefore, the court adopted a flexible indemnification standard whereby the only way for the feedlot operator to be enjoined in the public nuisance suit was if the housing developer paid its costs to move its operations.
The public nuisance doctrine can be applied to generational trauma that perpetuates racial inequality in the United States today. Both the Randle and Spur Industries courts define public nuisance similarly, as “affect[ing] at the same time an entire community or neighborhood, or any considerable number of persons, although the extent of the annoyance or damage inflicted upon individuals may be unequal.” As explained by the plaintiffs, the after-effects of the Tulsa Race Massacre continue to have a disparate impact on generations of African Americans living in the Greenwood neighborhood. The social and economic inequalities complained of by the plaintiffs in this case, are therefore not limited to a “definite small number of persons” but rather an entire community of individuals who have been subjected to cyclical discrimination perpetuated by the tragedy that followed the Massacre.
However, unlike the Arizona Supreme Court’s flexible interpretation of indemnification for a public nuisance suit, the Oklahoma Supreme Court strictly limits remedies for public nuisance liability to indictment, civil action, and abatement. While the Randle court held that the plaintiffs’ grievances were legitimate social and economic inequalities created by the Tulsa Race Massacre, they did not fall within the scope of recovery for public nuisance liability. First, any individuals that could be held criminally liable for the Tulsa Race Massacre were no longer living and as such could not be indicted. Second, the court reasoned that the plaintiffs failed to assert that there was any physical injury to property in Greenwood to recover any civil remedies. Third, the plaintiffs’ proposed abatement did not actually constitute an abatement, but rather consisted of anti-discriminatory policies directed at minimizing inequities which the judiciary could not address. Failing to meet the standards for recovery, the Supreme Court of Oklahoma ruled that the plaintiffs’ claim of public nuisance exceeded the scope of judicial power and breached into the sphere of legislative policymaking—a stark contrast with the unprompted application of equitable remedies to promote public welfare in Spur Industries.
This judgment highlights the judiciary’s responsibility to respect clear boundaries, reinforcing that deep-rooted societal and historical injustices are best addressed through legislative action, rather than the courts. However, for communities seeking justice for past wrongs, it underscores the importance of pushing for new laws and policies designed to confront these complex, long-standing issues. The Supreme Court of Oklahoma applied a rigid interpretation of 50 O.S. § 2 in asserting that Oklahoma’s public nuisance doctrine is confined to specific disturbances that are contemporarily actionable, rather than broad historical harms.
This creates a dichotomy regarding the public nuisance rule used in Spur Industries, which applied a more flexible and relevant stance. The relief sought by the plaintiffs would have furthered the public interest by resolving over a century of societal disparities faced by those in the Greenwood community and surrounding areas. The ongoing nuisances in Greenwood have stripped residents of the comfort, health, and safety they deserve in their own homes—this relief would help restore what they have lost.
In accordance with the public nuisance doctrine, the damage stemming from the Tulsa Race Massacre has affected an entire community and all its property within. While this event occurred over a century ago, the effects of the Massacre continue to ripple through the Greenwood community today and emphasize a current issue that must be resolved. The court conceded that the Tulsa Race Massacre “is a continuing blight within all property in the Greenwood community.” These ongoing consequences warrant judicial action as they continue to threaten the well-being of both the entire African American community and the residents of Greenwood, which would be accomplished if the Oklahoma court adopted a similar application as the court did in Spur Industries. In using this broader application, the plaintiffs would have been justly entitled to indemnification and possible policies that could mitigate the existing nuisances throughout Greenwood. Since the courts of Oklahoma have exclusive jurisdiction over the subject matter of this case, the plaintiffs could next lobby for legislative action in Congress to ensure protection for public nuisances perpetuated by generational grievances on a national scale.
Ariana Rokneddini is a first-year student at the American University Washington College of Law with an interest in International Trade Law.
Ashley Rooney is a first-year student at the American University Washington College of Law with an interest in Domestic and International Human Rights Law.
Image: Tulsa race riot inflames-1921.
