The Nantes administrative court ordered the Department of Maine-et-Loire to compensate the owners of a house in Mazé-Milon (Maine-et-Loire) for “noise pollution” generated by traffic on departmental road no. 347 which borders their property.
Marcelin and Sandra XXX initially claimed nearly €50,000: the repair of the D347 which borders their house had generated, after its completion in the summer of 2016 by the public works company Colas Center Ouest, “extra thicknesses” and “deformations” of the road surface. The community then had refused to “resume” the work.
However, these disorders had generated “vibrations”, causing “cracking” in the walls of their house and “noise pollution” when heavy goods vehicles passed by.s. According to the applicants, theThe “no-fault liability” of the Department must therefore be incurred for the “permanent damage” resulting from these public works.
They precisely encrypted the cost of the “recovery work” was more than €14,000, to which was added €3,500 for “work to (…) repair the cracks in their home”. The couple also claimed €27,000 for “loss of enjoyment”, and finally €5,000 for their “moral damage”.
The Department of Maine-et-Loire, for its part, concluded that the request should be “rejected” and even demanded “reimbursement” of the expert's fees and lawyer's fees for €6,490. The expert appointed by the court had in fact confirmed that the construction was “subject to low amplitude vibrations” when passing by a vehicle; they were caused by “the irregularities and excess thickness of the road surface”.
A “SEVERE SOUND DISCOMFORT”
-“The technical literature (…) mentions a harmful action of this type of vibration, caused by the passage of heavy goods vehicles and resulting from a road defect, on buildings adjoining road traffic lanes,” explained the expert judicial in its report. But he also concluded that the “vibration levels” did not present a “risk” to the health of the occupants and to the “structural integrity of this house”.
“Even though (…) cracks had been noted in 2014 on the building, these disorders do not present a serious character which would exceed (…) the constraints likely to be (…) imposed in the general interest on local residents public works”, therefore deduces the administrative court of Nantes in a judgment of November 19, 2024 and which has just been made public. On the other hand, in terms of “noise pollution”, the “acoustic level pressure” created by traffic on the D347 “exceeds” the “applicable regulatory thresholds”.
“The applicants are justified in maintaining that exceeding these regulatory thresholds affecting their property constitutes a serious noise nuisance, exceeding in its importance the constraints which can normally be imposed on residents of the public highway in the general interest,” write the magistrates. . Taking into account the location of their house and the configuration of the premises, this damage clearly presents “a special character” directly “linked to the work under project management by the Department”.
It remains that “the applicants were exposed from the acquisition of their home, to noise pollution pre-existing the work carried out in 2016 under the project management of the Department, taking into account the frequency of traffic on the particularly busy departmental road no. 347 » also notes the court.
More “given the observed extent of the excess of regulatory sound pressure thresholds during the day and at night”, the applicants are all the same “justified” in seeking the responsibility of the Department for the “noise nuisance” and have only been grant “€5,000”. The Department will also have to cover the €11,000 in expertise costs and pay the couple €1,500 for their legal costs. Both parties have until January 19, 2025 to appeal this judgment./CB
