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Sunday, November 02, 2008

Ind. Courts - "LaGrange farm sued over heifers: Manager says Ohio company knew cows it bought were sterile"

Rebecca S. Green of the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette had a fascinating story Oct. 30th that the ILB nearly missed:

A LaGrange County farm is at the center of a federal lawsuit filed by an Ohio farm, alleging hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages because of the sale of nearly 300 sterile cows.

But the manager of Brigitte Holmes Livestock Co. in Shipshewana said the Ohio farm knew exactly what it was buying and that there are signatures to prove it.

In a lawsuit filed late last week in U.S. District Court in Fort Wayne, officials with LDT Keller Farms in Fort Recovery, Ohio, sued Brigitte Holmes Livestock Co., Brigitte Holmes, Samuel Holmes and Mervin Mishler, all of LaGrange County.

Three Loogootee farmers – Levi Graber, Joseph Graber and Freeman Raber – are also named as defendants.

According to court documents, Brigitte Holmes Livestock bought 284 Holstein heifers between May 10, 2006, and Jan. 31, 2007, and all but three of the cows turned out to be sterile.

Each of the heifers had a male twin. In such situations, females are almost always sterile and are known as “freemartins.” LDT Keller Farms alleges that Brigitte Holmes Livestock bought the heifers for less than $50 apiece.

Brigitte Holmes Livestock then sold the heifers directly to LDT Keller Farms or to the Grabers and Raber, who then sold them to LDT Keller Farms, according to court documents.

In total, LDT paid $480,000 for the 284 cows. In the 10-count lawsuit, LDT Keller Farms alleges multiple counts of breach of contract, breach of warranty fitness for a particular purpose, violation of the federal packers and stockyard act and fraud.

LDT seeks $480,000 in compensatory damages and punitive damages of more than $1.4 million.

The attorney for Brigitte Holmes Livestock Co. declined to comment on the pending litigation, but Samuel Holmes, manager of the company, said LDT Keller Farms’ allegations are false and that he has the paperwork to back it up.

“He bought them not to be good, to be ‘iffys,’ ” Holmes said. “It’s wrote all over the bills, ‘breedability not guaranteed.’ We have our evidence in black and white. He knows how he bought ’em.”

Brigitte Holmes Livestock plans to countersue LDT Keller Farms, Samuel Holmes said.

Well, yes, I wanted to know more, and found this information from a genetics site at Colorado State University:
Chimeric cattle are not at all rare. When a cow has twins, it is almost inevitable that anastomoses (areas of joining) develop between the fetal circulatory systems early in gestation. This leads to exchange of blood between the two fetuses. Fetal blood contains hematopoietic stem cells, and each fetus is permanently "seeded" with stem cells from its twin. The result is that both animals are hematopoietic chimeras. A variable fraction of all their cells that are derived from hematopoietic stem cells (peripheral blood cells, Kupffer cells in the liver, lymphocytes and macrophages in lymph nodes and spleen, etc) are from the twin.

Major clinical signifcance is seen when one fetus is a female and one a male. In such cases, the female fetus is exposed to hormones from the male and is masculinized. Such female cattle are called freemartins. The external genital tract of a freemartin looks like a female, although usually infantile. The degree to which the internal genital tract is masculinized varies, but typically, the vagina is very short and uterine horns are rudimentary. Pretty obviously, these animals are sterile. Freemartins are seen occasionally in other species, although much less commonly than in cattle, probably because those animals do not have the propensity seen in cattle to form vascular anastomoses among fetuses early in gestation.
The case is LDT Keller Farms LLC et al v. Brigitte Holmes Livestock Co Inc et al. Here is the 27-page complaint, filed 10/17/08. Here is a 10/21/08 order: "Plaintiffs are ORDERED to filed an amended complaint forthwith that adequately articulates the citizenship of each party, tracing the citizenship of all unincorporated associations through all applicable layers of ownership."

Posted by Marcia Oddi on November 2, 2008 12:43 PM
Posted to Indiana Courts