property
Can I sue my neighbor for damages to my vinyl siding from his low-e windows?
<p>I have lived in my house in South Carolina for 3 yrs (original owner).  My neighbor has lived in his house for 2 yrs and is the 2nd owner.  He has low-e glass windows which has damaged my vinyl siding.  My builder is willing to replace my damaged siding after my neighbor has made a change to his 5 windows on the side of his house.  The builder has offered to put clear glass in his windows (free), but the neighbor declined because it is a downgrade from what he has now.  I do understand where he's coming from.  The builder also offered to put full screens on his 5 windows (free).  Neighbor declined this because he would want the builder to put full screens on all his 15 windows, which the builder won't do.  I belive the builder is being very reasonable since the warranty is up on my siding and he's willing to replace my siding and change my neighbor's windows.  My neighbor is not reasonably compromising at all. Can I sue my neighbor to add screens to the side of his house?</p>

<h2>Introduction</h2>
<p>I am not a South Carolina licensed attorney, and the rules for civil claims are notoriously variable across US states. Therefore this answer is extremely general.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Can I sue my neighbor for damages...</p>
</blockquote>
<p>First, you need a cause action: that is, a legal theory and a set of facts that taken together imply that the court should force the neighbor to compensate you.</p>
<p>I am going to assume that your cause of action would be <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negligence" rel="nofollow noreferrer">negligence</a>. The argument you would present to the court would then go along these lines:</p>
<ol>
<li>my neighbor did X</li>
<li>my neighbor should not have done X</li>
<li>as a result of my neighbor’s actions, bad thing Y happened to me</li>
<li>therefore, I ask Z to compensate for those bad things</li>
</ol>
<p>Even if #1 is easy to prove (you neighbor might admit that they had installed low-e window in such and such fashion and on such and such date), #2, #3, and to a lower degree #4 are probably an uphill battle for you. Let’s take them in order.</p>
<h2>My neighbor &quot;should not have done&quot; X</h2>
<p>&quot;Should not have done X&quot;, here, does not mean that it was <em>unwise</em> to do X. It means that the neighbor had a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duty_of_care" rel="nofollow noreferrer">&quot;duty of care&quot;</a> to refrain from doing X (or take additional steps etc.). You must establish that your neighbor had an obligation to behave in a certain way <em>towards you</em>.</p>
<p>Duty of care can be explicitly established by law. For instance, there might be a law, or building code, or HOA regulation that prohibits owners from installing low-e windows. I have not checked, but I suspect no such regulation exists, and even if it does, it is questionable whether this establishes a duty of care <em>towards you</em>.</p>
<p>Duty of care might also be established on more general grounds. I could not find the test that is applied in South Carolina, but it probably <em>at least</em> includes foreseeability - that is, that a reasonable person could have foreseen the possibility of bad stuff happening as a result of their actions (even if that possibility seemed remote at the time).</p>
<p>Your neighbor (’s attorney) could argue that it was not reasonable for them to expect that a low-e window would damage your property. If you have to spend large amount of time and money proving the causal connection between the low-e windows and your property damage (see below), it only reinforces that argument that a random homeowner could not have predicted that.</p>
<p>You might have a better luck suing whichever contractor installed the low-e windows, but even so, it seems like an uphill battle on the foreseeability front.</p>
<h2>Because of my neighbor’s actions, bad thing Y happened</h2>
<p>Again, there are subtle distinctions between &quot;cause in fact&quot; (= if my neighbor had not done X, Y would not have happened) and &quot;proximate cause&quot; (= Y is the direct result of X), but in general you have to show that you suffered negative consequences from your neighbor’s actions; in your case, that low-e windows caused damage to your property.</p>
<p>You would need to prove some physical explanation of the damage. And by you, I mean you would need to have an expert in court testifying to that, not you giving your own explanation to the judge. Such experts are really, really pricey. Even so, the theory would probably go thusly:</p>
<ul>
<li>low-e (low-''emissivity'') windows are coated with a layer that reflects some radiation (*)</li>
<li>because of that reflection off the neighbor’s window, the OP’s property is exposed to more radiation than usual</li>
<li>the OP’s vinyl siding has been damaged by that additional radiation more than it would have been by the &quot;standard&quot; amount</li>
</ul>
<p>That is a pretty convoluted chain of events. I think it would pass the proximate cause test if proven (because although the chain is long, it’s all reasonably-predictable physics), but proving each step is still complicated. Looking at the linked question in ohwilleke’s comment, I am ready to assume that it can happen, but it’s just me looking at a picture - an actual court expert testimony will be much tougher to assemble.</p>
<h2>I am entitled to Z</h2>
<p>Let’s assume you have proven your neighbor owes you compensation. What kind of compensation exactly?</p>
<p>In general, US courts very rarely impose <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specific_performance" rel="nofollow noreferrer">specific performance</a> when a monetary award (damages) would be sufficient. It seems extremely unlikely that a court would order OP’s neighbor to modify their property in a given fashion (adding screens etc.).</p>
<p>So assuming a monetary award, there is still the question of how much. Punitive damages seem unlikely, so this leaves only compensatory damages, that is, enough to compensate for OP’s losses. OP’s attorney will probably argue for the full cost of a siding replacement, plus additional protection measures against future degradation due to the neighbor’s window. The neighbor’s attorney would probably argue that OP’s siding would still have aged even without the neighbor’s action, and that the difference in market value would be minimal.</p>
<p>That concludes the law answer. However, reading your post, I have to address something else.</p>
<h2>You should check your builder’s claims</h2>
<p>The fact that your builder offered to do a lot of additional work, for free, on your neighbor’s property, seems pretty suspicious to me. Construction is not a high-margin activity, doing free work for non-clients is not something you do if you want to stay in business. I suspect they might have goofed up the siding installation the first time around, and blaming the neighbor is a convenient way out. I would definitely encourage you to get another builder on site to give a second opinion.</p>
