Shutdown as Last Resort: Narrowly Tailored Nuisance Injunctions and Deference to Texas Poultry‑Odor Regulation

I. Introduction

The Supreme Court of Texas’s decision in Steve Huynh, et al. v. Frank Blanchard, et al. (No. 21‑0676) addresses a recurring modern tension: how far may a trial court go in shutting down a lawful, highly regulated business in order to abate an offensive nuisance?

The case arises from severe odor complaints by neighbors living near large-scale poultry-growing operations that raise chickens under contract for Sanderson Farms, Inc. A jury found that the growers negligently and intentionally created a private nuisance affecting multiple neighboring landowners. In response, the trial court entered a permanent shutdown injunction that effectively ended the growers’ poultry operations.

On review, the Supreme Court agreed that some injunctive relief was appropriate but held that the total shutdown was an abuse of discretion. Justice Huddle’s concurring opinion—joined in relevant part by Chief Justice Hecht, Justice Bland, and Justice Young (as to Part I)—is especially important. It:

• Explains why a permanent injunction may issue even when the jury finds only a “temporary” nuisance.
• Clarifies that a temporary-nuisance finding does not negate “imminent harm” or bar equitable relief.
• Holds that damages are not an adequate remedy where future nuisance harms are unpredictable and would generate perpetual litigation.
• Condemns the trial court’s first-resort shutdown as overbroad and punitive in effect, contrary to core injunction principles.
• Insists that nuisance injunctions against poultry operations must be crafted to align with the Texas Clean Air Act and Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) regulations, especially Health & Safety Code § 382.068 governing poultry-facility odors.

Together, these points reinforce that Texas trial courts may enjoin nuisance-causing conduct, but must tailor injunctions to abate only the unlawful interference while preserving lawful business activity and respecting the Legislature’s regulatory framework.

II. Background: Parties, Dispute, and Procedural Posture

A. The parties

• Growers / Petitioners: Individual poultry growers (Steve and Yvonne Huynh, Thinh Bao Nguyen, Timmy Huynh, and their business entities), along with Sanderson Farms, Inc., which contracts with them to grow chickens.
• Neighbors / Respondents: Several nearby landowners and residents (including Frank Blanchard, Angelia Snow, and others) and Malakoff Properties, LLC and Ronny Snow, who asserted that odors from the poultry farms substantially interfered with the use and enjoyment of their properties.

B. The nuisance claim and jury findings

The neighbors sued alleging a private nuisance. At trial:

• The jury found, in response to Questions 1 and 3, that each grower negligently and intentionally caused a private nuisance as to each neighboring plaintiff.
• Question 4 asked the jury to choose which of two descriptions best characterized the injury proximately caused by the nuisance:
  1. Injury “of such a character as to recur repeatedly, continually, and regularly”; or
  2. Injury “of such a character that any anticipated recurrence would be only occasional, irregular, intermittent, and not reasonably predictable.”
• For each neighbor, the jury chose the second option: the nuisance-level odors would recur, but only in an occasional, irregular, intermittent, and unpredictable way.

No party challenged the sufficiency of the evidence supporting these findings. They are therefore binding factual determinations.

C. The trial court’s permanent shutdown injunction

Following the jury verdict, the neighbors sought equitable relief. Rather than fashion a targeted injunctive remedy, the trial court immediately issued a permanent injunction that effectively shut down the entire poultry-growing operation. Justice Huddle characterizes this as “crack[ing] a nut with a sledgehammer”: it prohibited both nuisance-creating conduct and activity that could be lawfully conducted without creating unreasonable odors.

D. The growers’ appeal and Supreme Court review

On appeal, the growers made three principal arguments against injunctive relief at all:

1. Because the jury characterized the nuisance as temporary, the trial court allegedly lacked authority to issue a permanent injunction.
2. The finding of a temporary nuisance supposedly meant there was no “imminent harm”, a required element for injunctive relief.
3. The neighbors allegedly had an adequate remedy at law in the form of damages, so equity should not intervene.

The Supreme Court rejected all three threshold arguments and agreed that some injunctive relief was appropriate. However, it held that the particular remedy—a permanent shutdown of a lawful, heavily regulated business as the very first equitable step—was an abuse of discretion. The case was remanded for the trial court to craft a significantly narrower injunction.

Justice Huddle concurred in the judgment, agreeing that the shutdown injunction was improper but writing separately to sharpen the legal principles she believed the Court’s opinion had obscured.

III. Summary of the Court’s Holding (as Reflected in the Concurrence)

Based on Justice Huddle’s concurrence, the Court’s decision has three central components:

1. Injunctive relief is available despite a “temporary nuisance” finding.
   • A jury’s determination that the nuisance injury is “occasional, irregular, intermittent, and not reasonably predictable” does not bar the court from issuing a permanent injunction.
   • The distinction between temporary and permanent nuisance affects damages and limitations, but it does not control whether a court may abate a nuisance through equitable relief.
2. The elements for permanent injunctive relief were met in principle.
   • Wrongful act: The jury’s nuisance findings provide the necessary predicate wrongful conduct.
   • Imminent harm: Whether problems are “imminent” is a legal question for the court; intermittent but recurring odors can still constitute imminent harm.
   • Irreparable injury & inadequacy of legal remedies: Because future odor episodes are unpredictable, damages cannot be reliably calculated in advance, and forcing neighbors to sue repeatedly for each new episode would create a multiplicity of suits.
3. The trial court’s “shutdown injunction” is overbroad and inconsistent with statutory/regulatory policy.
   • An injunction must be narrowly tailored to abate the nuisance but not prohibit lawful conduct.
   • A total shutdown of a lawful business may be appropriate only as a last resort, after narrower remedies have failed.
   • Here, the trial court ignored the detailed regulatory regime in the Texas Health & Safety Code and TCEQ’s poultry-odor rules, including an agreed Strategic Odor Control Plan. That was a misuse of equitable power.

Accordingly, the Supreme Court reversed the shutdown injunction and remanded for the trial court to design a more precise remedy that:

• respects the jury’s factual findings,
• abates only the unlawful nuisance-level odors, and
• harmonizes with the Legislature’s and TCEQ’s policy framework for poultry-farm odors.

IV. Detailed Analysis

A. Precedents and Authorities Cited

1. Jury fact-finding and appellate deference

• Crosstex N. Tex. Pipeline, L.P. v. Gardiner, 505 S.W.3d 580 (Tex. 2016)
  • Describes when courts may set aside jury findings on nuisance, emphasizing sufficiency-of-the-evidence standards.
  • Supports Justice Huddle’s point that because no party attacked the jury’s answers, the trial and appellate courts are bound by them.
• Golden Eagle Archery, Inc. v. Jackson, 116 S.W.3d 757 (Tex. 2003)
  • Reiterates that a court may not substitute its judgment for that of the jury and that the jury is the sole judge of credibility and weight of evidence.
  • Reinforces that courts cannot re-characterize the nuisance contrary to unchallenged jury findings.
• Benoit v. Wilson, 239 S.W.2d 792 (Tex. 1951)
  • Classic statement: “The jury, not the court, is the fact finding body.”
  • Huddle cites Benoit to criticize any suggestion that the trial court or Supreme Court could effectively disregard the jury’s “temporary” character of the odor injury.
• Gilbert Wheeler, Inc. v. Enbridge Pipelines (E. Tex.), L.P., 449 S.W.3d 474 (Tex. 2014)
  • Held that the ultimate classification of property injury as temporary or permanent is a question of law for the court.
  • But also emphasized that “questions regarding the facts that underlie the temporary-versus-permanent distinction must be resolved by the jury upon proper request.”
  • Justice Huddle uses this to explain that while courts decide the legal label, they must ground that decision in the jury’s unchallenged factual answers.
• Livingston v. Livingston, 537 S.W.3d 578 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2017, no pet.) & State v. Tex. Pet Foods, Inc., 591 S.W.2d 800 (Tex. 1979)
  • Stand for the proposition that the jury finds ultimate fact issues and the court then determines the expediency, necessity, and propriety of injunctive relief based on those facts.
  • Justice Huddle analogizes: the jury’s factual findings are the “building blocks”; the injunction is the structure erected by the court on top of them.
• Bostow v. Bank of Am., 2006 WL 89446 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 2006, no pet.)
  • Confirms that while equitable principles are applied by the court, the underlying fact findings by the jury are binding.

2. Nuisance doctrine: definition, temporary vs permanent

• Crosstex and Holubec v. Brandenberger, 111 S.W.3d 32 (Tex. 2003)
  • Define private nuisance as a condition that “substantially interferes with the use and enjoyment of land by causing unreasonable discomfort or annoyance to persons of ordinary sensibilities.”
  • Emphasize that not every unpleasantness qualifies; the interference must be both substantial and unreasonable.
• Schneider Nat’l Carriers, Inc. v. Bates, 147 S.W.3d 264 (Tex. 2004)
  • Analyzes the difference between temporary and permanent nuisances, especially for damages purposes.
  • Critically for this case, states that characterization as temporary or permanent should not depend on whether the nuisance can be abated and that courts may choose to abate either kind.
  • Huddle relies on Schneider to show that the injunctive power does not turn on the temporary/permanent label.
• Sherman Gas & Elec. Co. v. Belden, 123 S.W. 119 (Tex. 1909)
  • Recognizes that the “lawful and ordinary use of new businesses” can change nearby land values and cause some discomfort, which is not automatically unlawful.
  • Supports Huddle’s point that in an industrial society, some level of odor and inconvenience from lawful activities is inevitable; nuisance law polices only unreasonable excesses.
• Holubec v. Brandenburger, 214 S.W.3d 650 (Tex. App.—Austin 2006, no pet.)
  • Reiterates that an injunction is granted to restrain actually existing nuisances, not speculative future ones.
  • Here, the odors were real and recurring, but their timing and intensity were irregular—so the issue is scope of relief, not whether a nuisance exists.

3. Injunctive relief standards and limits

• Pike v. Tex. EMC Mgmt., LLC, 610 S.W.3d 763 (Tex. 2020)
  • Sets out the elements for a permanent injunction in Texas:
    1. a wrongful act,
    2. imminent harm,
    3. irreparable injury, and
    4. the absence of an adequate remedy at law.
  • Provides the framework Justice Huddle uses to assess whether injunctive relief is conceptually available.
• Operation Rescue-Nat’l v. Planned Parenthood of Hous. & Se. Tex., Inc., 975 S.W.2d 546 (Tex. 1998)
  • Holds that whether “imminent harm” exists is a legal question for the court, not the jury.
  • Huddle cites this to reject the growers’ attempt to read the jury’s “temporary nuisance” finding as a fact determination negating imminence.
• Butnaru v. Ford Motor Co., 84 S.W.3d 198 (Tex. 2002) and Republic Ins. Co. v. O’Donnell Motor Co., 289 S.W. 1064 (Tex. App.—Dallas 1926, no writ)
  • Confirm the basic equitable rule that injunctive relief is a last resort; it is available only when there is no adequate remedy at law.
  • Frame Huddle’s criticism: the trial court skipped intermediate remedies and went straight to shutdown.
• Hyde Corp. v. Huffines, 314 S.W.2d 763 (Tex. 1958)
  • Warns that injunctions must not operate as punishments; they are remedial and preventive.
  • Huddle invokes this to argue that unrelated “bad acts” (such as alleged subsidy abuses) cannot justify making a shutdown injunction more severe.
• Holubec v. Brandenberger, 111 S.W.3d 32 (Tex. 2003); Brown v. Petrolite Corp., 965 F.2d 38 (5th Cir. 1992); Wiese v. Heathlake Cmty. Ass’n, 384 S.W.3d 395 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 2012, no pet.); TMRJ Holdings, Inc. v. Inhance Techs., LLC, 540 S.W.3d 202 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2018, no pet.); Fairfield Estates L.P. v. Griffin, 986 S.W.2d 719 (Tex. App.—Eastland 1999, no pet.)
  • Collectively stand for these rules:
    • An injunction must be narrowly drawn and precise.
    • It must be specific in its terms and clearly describe the acts restrained.
    • It must not enjoin a defendant from conducting lawful activities or exercising legal rights.
    • Overly broad injunctions that grant more relief than the plaintiff is entitled to constitute an abuse of discretion.
  • These cases are the doctrinal backbone for calling the shutdown injunction overbroad.
• Hot Rod Hill Motor Park v. Triolo, 276 S.W.3d 565 (Tex. App.—Waco 2008, no pet.)
  • Provides an example of a nuisance case where the court carefully balanced equities and focused on abating the specific nuisance (a racetrack’s noise), rather than destroying the business.
  • Illustrates how nuisance injunctions should be designed.
• United States v. W.T. Grant Co., 345 U.S. 629 (1953)
  • States that the purpose of an injunction is to prevent future violations.
  • Supports Huddle’s emphasis that injunctive relief is fundamentally forward-looking.
• eBay Inc. v. MercExchange, L.L.C., 547 U.S. 388 (2006) (Roberts, C.J., concurring) & Martin v. Franklin Cap. Corp., 546 U.S. 132 (2005)
  • Stress that judicial “discretion is not whim” and must be exercised according to legal standards so that like cases are treated alike.
  • Used by Huddle to critique ad hoc, punitive remedies and to insist on adherence to general injunction principles.
• Califano v. Yamasaki, 442 U.S. 682 (1979)
  • Holds that the scope of injunctive relief must be dictated by the extent of the violation established.
  • Reinforces the requirement that an injunction go no further than needed to remedy the proven wrong.

4. Adequate remedy at law and multiplicity of suits

• Bank of Sw. N.A. v. Harlingen Nat’l Bank, 662 S.W.2d 113 (Tex. App.—Corpus Christi 1983, no writ)
  • Illustrates when damages are an adequate legal remedy—where harm is readily calculable and the defendant can pay.
• Sharma v. Vinmar Int’l, Ltd., 231 S.W.3d 405 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 2007, no pet.)
  • Holds that when potential damage cannot be easily calculated, legal remedies are inadequate.
  • Supports Huddle’s view that irregular future odors cannot be priced in advance with reasonable certainty.
• Campbell v. Wilder, 487 S.W.3d 146 (Tex. 2016) & Repka v. Am. Nat. Ins. Co., 186 S.W.2d 977 (Tex. 1945)
  • Recognize the doctrine that if a legal remedy would lead to a multiplicity of suits, it is not “complete and adequate.”
  • Here, repeated nuisance episodes requiring repeated lawsuits make damages inadequate, justifying an injunction.
• Schneider again
  • Famous line: “‘Good fences make good neighbors,’ [but] repeated litigation is unlikely to.”
  • Huddle quotes this to underscore the social cost of forcing neighbors and growers into perpetual nuisance litigation instead of a structural injunctive solution.

5. Environmental regulation and TCEQ’s role

• Train v. Nat. Res. Def. Council, Inc., 421 U.S. 60 (1975)
  • Confirms that the federal Clean Air Act relies heavily on state implementation plans; states choose the specific mechanisms to reach federal air-quality goals.
• BCCA Appeal Grp., Inc. v. City of Houston, 496 S.W.3d 1 (Tex. 2016)
  • Describes the Texas Clean Air Act (Health & Safety Code ch. 382) and confirms TCEQ’s central role in administering and enforcing air-quality regulations.
• Brazoria County v. Tex. Comm’n on Env’t Quality, 128 S.W.3d 728 (Tex. App.—Austin 2004, no pet.) & Slay v. Tex. Comm’n on Env’t Quality, 351 S.W.3d 532 (Tex. App.—Austin 2011, pet. denied)
  • Recognize TCEQ as the state agency generally responsible for protecting air quality and give examples of its enforcement mechanisms.
• In re Methyl Tertiary Butyl Ether (MTBE) Prods. Liab. Litig., 476 F. Supp. 2d 275 (S.D.N.Y. 2007)
  • Explains that equitable relief in environmental cases should account for the need for consistency and coordination with state agencies.
  • Justice Huddle cites this federal decision to bolster her insistence that the injunction must respect TCEQ’s regulatory scheme.
• Texas Health & Safety Code §§ 382.001–.551; § 382.068 (“Poultry Facility Odor; Response to Complaints”)
  • Section 382.068 specifically addresses poultry-facility odors:
    • TCEQ investigates odor complaints.
    • Upon finding violations, TCEQ issues notices of violation (NOVs).
    • If three NOVs are issued in one year, TCEQ must enter a comprehensive compliance agreement that includes an odor control plan “sufficient to control odors.”
  • This statutory framework is central to Huddle’s view that any nuisance injunction must “dovetail” with TCEQ’s determinations about lawful odor levels and corrective measures.

B. The Court’s Legal Reasoning

1. A permanent injunction may issue to abate a “temporary” nuisance

The growers argued that because the jury characterized the nuisance injury as “occasional, irregular, intermittent, and not reasonably predictable,” the nuisance was “temporary” and therefore not subject to a permanent injunction. Justice Huddle rejects this as a misreading of Texas law.

Key points:

• The jury’s choice in Question 4 establishes two fact propositions:
  1. There is a nuisance (severe odors interfering with neighbors’ use and enjoyment), and
  2. The nuisance-level odors do not occur “repeatedly, continually, and regularly,” but instead recur in an intermittent and unpredictable fashion.
• No one challenged the sufficiency of the evidence to support that finding, so courts must accept it as true.
• However, the characterization of the nuisance as “temporary” or “permanent” is ultimately a question of law for the court, per Gilbert Wheeler. That classification primarily affects:
  • the measure and timing of damages, and
  • limitations issues.
• Crucially, Texas cases such as Schneider and Crosstex make clear that a court’s power to abate a nuisance by injunction does not turn on whether the nuisance is labeled temporary or permanent. Courts may:
  • abate a temporary nuisance,
  • abate a permanent nuisance, or
  • decline to abate either, depending on equitable considerations.

Justice Huddle uses a helpful analogy: a disease can be permanent even if its symptoms wax and wane. A chronic condition may produce flare-ups (severe symptoms) at unpredictable intervals, yet the underlying disease is ongoing. In the same way, the operation of a large poultry farm is continuous, even if nuisance-level odors arise only during certain cycles, weather conditions, or management failures. That pattern supports a permanent, forward-looking remedy aimed at the underlying cause.

Thus, even accepting the jury’s factual finding that the nuisance manifestations are intermittent and unpredictable, the court may still impose a permanent injunction—so long as the evidence supports the other equitable elements and the injunction is properly tailored.

2. Temporary nuisance findings do not negate “imminent harm”

The growers next tried to leverage the “temporary” characterization into an argument that there was no “imminent harm,” and thus no basis for any injunction under Pike. Justice Huddle explains why that argument fails.

• “Imminent harm” is a legal conclusion drawn by the court from underlying facts; it is not a jury question. Operation Rescue expressly holds this.
• The jury’s finding of intermittent, unpredictable recurrence does not amount to a legal determination that harm is not imminent. It simply describes the pattern of past and anticipated future episodes.
• Imminence, in the injunction context, does not require that harm be:
  • constant, or
  • perfectly predictable in timing.
  It is enough that, in light of the ongoing operation and past episodes, future harm is reasonably certain to occur at some point absent judicial intervention.

Accordingly, the trial court did not err conceptually by finding “imminent harm” despite the jury’s answer to Question 4. The error lay not in granting an injunction at all, but in the scope of the injunction.

3. Damages are not an adequate remedy for unpredictable future nuisance harms

The growers also contended that the neighbors had an adequate remedy at law in the form of damages, and so equitable relief was improper. Justice Huddle agrees that, for past harm, damages can be calculated and awarded. But she focuses on the future harm that an injunction is designed to prevent:

• Because the nuisance-level odors are “not reasonably predictable” in timing or intensity, future harm cannot be priced with any precision in a single damages award.
• The grower’s proposed “remedy” is essentially an invitation to perpetual litigation: neighbors must wait until the odors flare up again, then rush to court, repeatedly, over many years.
• Texas law (e.g., Campbell, Repka) recognizes that if a legal remedy would require a multiplicity of suits, it is not “complete and adequate.”
• Moreover, as Schneider observed, repeated litigation is socially corrosive—“repeated litigation is unlikely to [make good neighbors].” Nuisance injunctions can provide a structural solution that avoids serial lawsuits.

On this analysis, the legal remedy of damages is inadequate as to future harms. That conclusion supports the availability of some form of permanent injunctive relief.

4. The core error: a shutdown injunction as the first and only remedy

Justice Huddle’s central concern is not that an injunction was granted, but that the very first injunction the trial court issued was a total shutdown of a lawful business. That, she argues, violates basic injunction principles:

• Equitable relief must be a last resort. Courts typically require a showing that narrower remedies (including damages or narrower injunctions) are inadequate before imposing the most severe restrictions.
• An injunction must be narrowly tailored to the specific wrong—here, nuisance-level odors—rather than banning the entire enterprise.
• The injunction’s function is corrective, not punitive:
  • Bad acts that do not cause or contribute to the nuisance (e.g., alleged misuse of subsidies, regulatory delays) are irrelevant to the scope of relief.
  • Equity cannot be a vehicle for punishing conduct unrelated to the nuisance itself.
• The legal standard for nuisance is whether the condition causes unreasonable interference to persons of ordinary sensibilities, not whether it causes any annoyance. The goal is to reduce odors from unreasonable to reasonable levels, not to eradicate all unpleasant smells.

From this perspective, the shutdown injunction:

• Enjoined conduct that could be lawfully carried on without creating a nuisance.
• Failed to specify which activities were actually prohibited beyond “operating the chicken farm,” making it overly broad and insufficiently precise.
• Inevitably captured lawful, non-nuisance-generating activity, contrary to cases like TMRJ Holdings, Fairfield Estates, and Wiese.

The proper judicial task, in Huddle’s view, is to identify the threshold at which odor emissions become unlawful and then prohibit only that level of operation, thereby balancing neighbors’ rights with the growers’ right to operate a lawful business.

5. The injunction must align with Texas’s poultry-odor regulatory scheme

A distinctive feature of this case is the existence of a detailed statutory and regulatory framework that already addresses poultry-facility odors:

• Texas enacted the Texas Clean Air Act (Health & Safety Code ch. 382), creating and empowering TCEQ to regulate air quality, including odors from agricultural sources.
• Section 382.068 specifically governs poultry-facility odors, setting out:
  • A complaint and investigation process.
  • Use of notices of violation (NOVs) when standards are breached.
  • Mandatory negotiation of a comprehensive compliance agreement including an odor control plan when multiple violations occur.
• In this case:
  • TCEQ received odor complaints and issued several NOVs, including two just weeks before trial.
  • Pursuant to § 382.068, the growers and TCEQ agreed to a Strategic Odor Control Plan, which was designed to bring the operation into compliance by regulating elements such as:
    • number of birds and growing cycles,
    • ventilation and waste-handling practices,
    • facility maintenance and other operational details.

The neighbors argued, and the Court’s majority apparently suggested, that the Plan was not effective or properly implemented, and that TCEQ enforcement was inadequate. Justice Huddle responds:

• Evidence that the Plan was implemented late, or that a separate self-audit was inadequate, does not show that the Plan itself is incapable of controlling odors if properly followed.
• The trial court cannot simply throw up its hands at TCEQ’s perceived laxity and then ignore the statutory framework entirely by ordering a shutdown.

Instead, she insists:

• Courts must give effect to the Legislature’s policy choices in § 382.068 and related regulations, which represent a careful balancing of:
  • the economic benefits of poultry operations, and
  • the environmental and quality-of-life interests of neighboring landowners.
• The proper approach on remand is for the trial court to:
  • Study the TCEQ regulatory regime and the Strategic Odor Control Plan.
  • Determine what level and pattern of operation complies with those standards and eliminates unreasonable odors.
  • Craft an injunction that:
    • prohibits operations exceeding that level (i.e., operations that TCEQ standards and the nuisance verdict deem unlawful), but
    • permits the growers to continue operations to the extent they can do so without violating TCEQ standards or creating a nuisance.

Huddle does not require the trial court to copy the Plan verbatim into the injunction, but she is clear that the court may not ignore the regulatory framework. Alignment with TCEQ’s standards ensures that:

• Judicial remedies do not create de facto new air-quality standards inconsistent with legislative policy.
• Growers know that compliance with both TCEQ rules and the court’s order will allow lawful operation.
• Neighbors are protected against nuisance-level odors under a coherent, enforceable standard.

She concedes that, in the face of continued, willful violations of a narrower injunction, a shutdown could eventually be appropriate, citing Operation Rescue, where a broader injunction followed the failure of a narrower one. But as a first attempt at abatement—especially given a robust regulatory system—shutdown is unwarranted.

C. Likely Impact on Future Cases and the Law

1. Nuisance injunctions against regulated businesses

The decision signals to Texas trial courts that:

• They may grant injunctive relief against nuisance-causing operations even when the nuisance is intermittent and classified as “temporary.”
• However, total shutdowns of lawful, regulated businesses are disfavored as an initial remedy and will be closely scrutinized for overbreadth.
• Courts must calibrate the scope of the injunction to the degree of violation proven, allowing lawful operations to continue where they can be conducted without creating unreasonable interference.

2. Integration of tort remedies with environmental regulation

Although Texas nuisance law remains fully available to injured neighbors, this opinion emphasizes that:

• Courts are not free to invent their own air-quality standards from scratch.
• Where the Legislature has entrusted an agency (here, TCEQ) with detailed regulation of a particular harm (poultry odors), equitable remedies must harmonize with that regime.
• In practice, this means:
  • Trial courts should consult TCEQ rules, NOV histories, and compliance plans when setting operational limits.
  • Injunctions will likely track—or at least be heavily informed by—agency standards for acceptable emission levels and control measures.

This approach promotes:

• Uniformity: similarly situated facilities are judged against similar standards.
• Predictability: businesses can look to TCEQ rules and prior enforcement actions to anticipate what courts will require.
• Separation of powers: courts respect legislative and administrative policy choices rather than becoming shadow environmental regulators.

3. Protection of the jury’s role in mixed law–equity cases

Justice Huddle is also defending the integrity of the jury’s role in cases involving both damages and equitable relief:

• Even though the classification of injury as temporary or permanent is a legal question, courts must not erase the jury’s specific factual findings (e.g., intermittent recurrence) when shaping equitable remedies.
• Appellate courts should not suggest that a trial court could simply “disregard” unchallenged jury findings in order to reach a more convenient legal classification.

This reinforces a broader principle: in Texas, when both law (jury-triable) and equity (judge-decided) issues are present, equitable determinations must be grounded in and consistent with the jury’s fact findings, absent a proper challenge and reversal of those findings.

4. Clarifying injunctive factors: temporary nuisance, imminent harm, and adequacy of remedy

The opinion also helps clarify three sometimes-confused points:

• “Temporary nuisance” is not a bar to permanent injunctive relief; it is a description of how the nuisance manifests, not of the court’s power.
• “Imminent harm” does not require constant, 24/7 injury; recurring but irregular harm can be “imminent” for injunction purposes.
• An “adequate remedy at law” must be both calculable and reasonably complete; when recurring harms would force continuous litigation, damages alone are inadequate.

5. Practical guidance for trial courts on remand and beyond

Going forward, trial courts in similar nuisance cases—especially involving regulated operations like feedlots, refineries, or waste facilities—are likely to:

• Begin with targeted injunctive orders tied closely to:
  • emission limits,
  • operational controls,
  • monitoring and reporting obligations, and
  • corrective-action triggers (e.g., upon certain complaint thresholds).
• Reserve business-closure orders for egregious situations where:
  • narrower injunctions have been tried and have failed, and
  • the defendant persistently violates both court orders and regulatory standards.

In that sense, this decision encourages a more incremental, regulated approach to nuisance abatement rather than a binary on/off model.

V. Complex Concepts Simplified

1. What is a “nuisance” in Texas law?

A private nuisance is not simply something annoying. It is a condition (odor, noise, vibration, pollution, etc.) that:

• Substantially interferes with the use and enjoyment of land, and
• Causes unreasonable discomfort or annoyance to a person of ordinary sensibilities.

“Substantial” means more than trivial or fleeting; “unreasonable” means beyond what people in a community must tolerate in light of common and lawful activities. A lawful business can create some inconvenience without being a nuisance. It becomes a nuisance when its effects cross that line.

2. Temporary vs permanent nuisance (and why it matters less for injunctions)

The distinction between temporary and permanent nuisance mainly matters for:

• how damages are measured (e.g., lost use vs diminished market value), and
• when the limitations period begins to run.

Broadly:

• A permanent nuisance causes injuries that are continuous, predictable, and expected to continue indefinitely unless the condition is changed (e.g., a permanently altered drainage pattern flooding land every time it rains).
• A temporary nuisance causes injuries that occur irregularly or sporadically, and the recurrence of harmful episodes is “occasional, irregular, intermittent, and not reasonably predictable.”

Justice Huddle’s key point is that both kinds of nuisance may be abated by injunction. The temporary–permanent label does not dictate whether injunctive relief is available.

3. Permanent injunction vs permanent nuisance

The term “permanent injunction” simply means an injunction that:

• is not limited to a short period (like a temporary restraining order), and
• remains in force indefinitely until the court modifies or dissolves it.

It does not mean the underlying nuisance must be “permanent” in the damages sense. A permanent injunction can be used to prevent or control:

• a permanent nuisance, or
• a temporary nuisance that is expected to recur unpredictably but persistently over time.

4. Imminent harm and irreparable injury

To issue a permanent injunction, a court must find:

• Imminent harm: Harm is reasonably certain to occur in the future if no injunction is issued. It need not be constant; recurring episodes count.
• Irreparable injury: The harm cannot be fully corrected by money damages because:
  • it is difficult or impossible to quantify (especially before it occurs), or
  • damages would require endless, repeatedly filed suits.

Justice Huddle emphasizes that “imminent harm” is a legal determination for the judge, based on facts found by the jury and additional evidence, not a factual label controlled by the temporary/permanent nuisance distinction.

5. Adequate remedy at law and multiplicity of suits

An “adequate remedy at law” usually means that:

• You can be made whole by a money judgment, and
• You won’t have to keep returning to court every time the defendant repeats the conduct.

Where harm is:

• unpredictable,
• ongoing, and
• would require a new lawsuit every time it recurs,

the legal remedy is inadequate because it leads to a “multiplicity of suits.” That is exactly the situation here: neighbors would have to sue repeatedly as each new odor episode occurs, which is neither efficient nor fair.

6. Narrow tailoring and “overbroad” injunctions

A well-crafted injunction:

• Specifies precisely what the defendant may not do.
• Is broad enough to prevent repetition of similar violations.
• But is not so broad that it prohibits lawful conduct that does not contribute to the harm.

An injunction is overbroad if it:

• extends beyond the activities that caused the plaintiff’s injury,
• effectively shuts down a lawful business altogether when narrower restrictions would suffice, or
• functions as a punishment rather than a targeted correction.

Justice Huddle views the trial court’s shutdown order as the paradigm of an overbroad injunction.

7. Role of TCEQ and the Texas Clean Air Act in nuisance cases

TCEQ is Texas’s primary environmental regulator for air quality. Under the Texas Clean Air Act, it:

• sets air-quality and odor standards,
• investigates complaints,
• issues NOVs, and
• negotiates compliance plans, especially under § 382.068 for poultry facilities.

In nuisance cases involving regulated emissions (like poultry odors), courts still apply nuisance law, but they should:

• consult and incorporate TCEQ’s standards, enforcement history, and compliance plans;
• avoid creating ad hoc emission limits that conflict with legislative and agency policy; and
• design injunctions that work alongside TCEQ’s oversight rather than supplanting it.

VI. Conclusion: Key Takeaways

Justice Huddle’s concurring opinion in Huynh v. Blanchard powerfully refines how Texas courts should approach nuisance-based injunctions against regulated businesses:

• Injunctive relief remains available even when the nuisance is classified as temporary. Intermittent, unpredictable yet recurring harms can support a permanent injunction.
• A finding of temporary nuisance does not negate “imminent harm.” Imminence is a legal judgment, and recurring episodes suffice.
• Damages alone are not adequate when future harm is unpredictable and would require perpetual litigation, especially in neighbor–neighbor disputes.
• Shutdown injunctions are extraordinary. They should come, if at all, only after narrower injunctions and regulatory mechanisms have failed, not as an initial remedy.
• Injunctions must be narrowly tailored. They should abate the proven nuisance by targeting specific odor-generating practices, not outlaw lawful business operations altogether.
• Courts must harmonize nuisance remedies with environmental regulation. In the poultry-odor context, that means working within the Texas Clean Air Act and TCEQ’s § 382.068 framework, including NOVs and odor control plans.
• Jury findings remain central. Even where the ultimate legal characterization is for the court, unchallenged factual findings about the nature and recurrence of harm constrain equitable decisions.

On remand, the trial court must design a new injunction that:

• respects the jury’s finding that the nuisance-level odors are intermittent but ongoing;
• uses TCEQ standards and the Strategic Odor Control Plan as guides for permissible operations;
• prevents unreasonable odors from interfering with neighbors’ property rights; but
• allows the poultry growers to continue operating to the extent they can do so lawfully and without creating a nuisance.

In the broader legal landscape, this decision reinforces a disciplined, policy-sensitive approach to nuisance injunctions. It confirms that equity may intervene where damages fall short, yet insists that such intervention proceed with precision, respect for the jury’s role, and deference to the Legislature’s regulatory design.