Hog farm's neighbors awarded $50M after suing over smells, spraying

[Swordsmyth]

Families who live near a hog farm in Bladen County, N.C., have been complaining for decades about bad smells, flies and excessive chemical spraying.
But on Thursday, they finally scored a huge victory in court. A federal jury awarded the neighbors more than $50 million in damages, agreeing that the impact of the farm’s operation was so intrusive that people couldn't enjoy their rural homes.
Instead of suing the farm's owner, the plaintiffs’ attorneys aimed instead at the hog-production division of Virginia-based Smithfield Foods, a Chinese-owned company.
Smithfield uses strict contracts to dictate how farm operators raise the livestock that Smithfield owns.
Jurors awarded the 10 neighbors who sued the 15,000-head swine operation a total of $750,000 in compensation, plus $50 million in damages designed to punish Smithfield.
"We are pleased with the verdict. These cases are about North Carolina family property rights and a clean environment," said Mona Lisa Wallace, a Salisbury attorney whose firm teamed with two Texas-based firms to prepare the series of trials covering similar ground. "We are now preparing for the next, which is scheduled for the end of May."
The jurors decided that “the defendant owed [the neighbors] a standard of care in terms of trying to minimize the odors and other undesirable fallout from their processes," said Wake Forest University law professor Sidney Shapiro, who has followed the case. “Apparently the jury decided [Smithfield] knew about and disregarded all this fallout even though they could do something positive to reduce it.”
Smithfield hasn't changed the locally dominant method of hog waste disposal since intensive hog operations multiplied in North Carolina in the 1980s and '90s. The practice involves housing thousands of hogs together, flushing their waste into holding pits, allowing bacteria to break down the material, then spraying the effluent onto fields with agricultural spray guns.
Neighbors say the spraying sends the smells and animal waste airborne, allowing it to drift into their homes and sometimes coat outdoor surfaces on their properties.
The case was the first in dozens of lawsuits filed by more than 500 neighbors complaining about hog operations.
But North Carolina legislators last year changed state law to make it much more difficult to replicate the string of nuisance lawsuits targeting hog operations like the one decided Thursday.
“The lawsuits are a serious threat to a major industry, to North Carolina's entire economy and to the jobs and livelihoods of tens of thousands of North Carolinians," Smithfield senior vice president Keira Lombardo said in a statement.

More at: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2018/0...Health+-+Text)

I wonder how many of the plaintiffs are recent arrivals from Yankeedom.

[Dr.3D]

I wonder how many of the plaintiffs are recent arrivals from Yankeedom.

Yeah, I have very little sympathy for somebody who moves next door to a farm and then starts complaining about the smell.

[timosman]

Yeah, I have very little sympathy for somebody who moves next door to a farm and then starts complaining about the smell.

You have very little sympathy for society.

[Henry Rogue]

Yeah, I have very little sympathy for somebody who moves next door to a farm and then starts complaining about the smell.

Agree, but sometimes it's the Factory farm that moves in next to you. Don't know about the pig operation, but dairy operations drill 75 gallon per minute wells that lower the water table and expose arsenic in the surrounding wells. Not to mention, you wont be able to have windows open for 2 weeks in the summer.

[Dr.3D]

You have very little sympathy for society.

Yes I do.... the more people you pack together in specific amount of space, the more problems there will be. That Sir, is the problem with society.

There is absolutely no way to satisfy everybody to the point that none of them are going to complain about something you are doing.

Now to move right next door to something you know you are not going to like, and then start complaining about it, is sheer stupidity.

[timosman]

On the other hand aren't these people living too close to the cows?

[thoughtomator]

Yeah, I have very little sympathy for somebody who moves next door to a farm and then starts complaining about the smell.

If they've been complaining for decades about it, chances are quite excellent that they were there before modern industrial hog farming techniques were implemented, and quite poor that they are city folk who ignorantly moved into the country expecting no country smells.

[Henry Rogue]

On the other hand aren't these people living too close to the cows?

The excretions are stored in a tank, it isn't until the tank is drain and spread over fields that the smell becomes overpowering for miles. They actually use pipelines these days and can spread it miles away from the "cows".

[tod evans]

At 8 y/o I remember pulling a manure spreader behind my uncles Johnny-Popper to fertilize the corn....

In today's $#@!ed-up world that'd be child abuse......

[angelatc]

Yeah, I have very little sympathy for somebody who moves next door to a farm and then starts complaining about the smell.

Do smells violate property rights?

And it appears to be more than that:

Neighbors say the spraying sends the smells and animal waste airborne, allowing it to drift into their homes and sometimes coat outdoor surfaces on their properties.

They are covering other people's property with effluent.

[Suzanimal]

Yeah, I have very little sympathy for somebody who moves next door to a farm and then starts complaining about the smell.

From what I read (in another article), the 10 original complainants (these people) were there before the hog farm. As far as the others go (more suits are coming), I'm not so sure.

[timosman]

At 8 y/o I remember pulling a manure spreader behind my uncles Johnny-Popper to fertilize the corn....

In today's $#@!ed-up world that'd be child abuse......

NYT Horrified When 11 Year Old Mows White House Lawn - https://www.ronpaulforums.com/showth...ite-House-Lawn

[Dr.3D]

From what I read (in another article), the 10 original complainants (these people) were there before the hog farm. As far as the others go (more suits are coming), I'm not so sure.

Yeah, if they were there first I can see a problem and the hog farm is causing damage to the neighbors.