Scream at Your Toilet and Get Fined or Put in Jail
Apparently it’s illegal to scream at an overflowing toilet.
Dawn Herb, a woman in Scranton, Pennsylvania, was cited for disorderly conduct and could face up to 90 days in jail and a fine up to $300.
“It doesn’t make any sense. I was in my house. It’s not like I was outside or drunk,” said Ms. Herb. “The toilet was overflowing and leaking down into the kitchen and I was yelling (for my daughter) to get the mop.”
She admitted to using some profanity near an open bathroom window.
The big problem for Dawn is that her next door neighboor was a police officer. He asked her to keep it down, she didn’t, so he call the cops on her.
“You can’t prosecute somebody for swearing at a cop or a toilet,” said Mary Catherine Roper, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union in Philadelphia.
The thought now comes up: is this really against the law? Is getting pissed off at your toilet a crime? Is toilet-screaming now illegal?
The quick answer to this bathroom brawl? No.
This is the text of 18 Pa.C.S. § 5503(a), which is Pennsylvania’s prohibition on disorderly conduct:
A person is guilty of disorderly conduct if, with intent to cause public inconvenience, annoyance or alarm, or recklessly creating a risk thereof, he:
   (1) engages in fighting or threatening, or in violent or tumultuous behavior;
(2) makes unreasonable noise;
(3) uses obscene language, or makes an obscene gesture; or
(4) creates a hazardous or physically offensive condition by any act which serves no legitimate purpose of the actor.
Was Dawn engaging in fighting or threatening, or in violent or tumultuous behavior? Not unless you count toilet-warfare as violent, no. Was she making unreasonable noise? Let’s remember the statute says “with intent to cause public inconvenience, annoyance or alarm, or recklessly creating a risk thereof”. She definitely didn’t do that. Did she use obscene language? Well yes she did but, again, keep in mind she didn’t do it “with intent to cause public inconvenience, annoyance or alarm, or recklessly creating a risk thereof”. And we can pretty much throw out the “creates a hazardous or physically offensive condition by any act which serves no legitimate purpose of the actor.”
Our main point that we should take from this is not to let others dissuade you from having a good time under the guise of “disorderly conduct”. I can’t tell you the amount of times people have tried to use that excuse to prevent people from doing a fun, non-violent, legal activity that may produce some noise. Remember, disorderly conduct goes hand-in-hand with public unruliness which may lead to disorder and tumult. Just noise does not break the public peace! Yes it can piss off people that may want to go to sleep. Yes, 91 year old people who like their “peace and quiet” may throw their walker at you. But noise in-and-of itself does not cause the crime of disorderly conduct! It is not meant as a catch-all condition for any little thing that can disturb or annoy someone.
In this case, Dawn was in her home and her neighbor seems to be the only person that was disturbed by this. Her neighbor may have a right to be pissed off. He may have the right to not talk to her again. He may have the right to not bring fruitcake to her house in the Holidays. But disorderly conduct? You sir, are the one out of order.
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A case could be made that she recklessly disregarded a risk of public annoyance based on the fact that her neighbor had previously requested that she quiet down. This warning created an awareness on her part that her outbursts were disturbing her neighbor, an awareness that she may have disregarded. In addition, it is irrelevant that her outburst was intended as a communication to her daughter; “The specific intent requirement of [the] statute ‘may be met by a showing of a reckless disregard of the risk of public inconvenience,’ . . . even if the appellant’s intent was to send a message to a certain individual, rather than to cause public inconvenience, annoyance, or alarm. See Commonwealth v. Kidd, 296 Pa.Super. 393, 442 A.2d 826 (1982).