« Ind. Decisions - SCOTUS considered likely to approve cert grant in Indiana sex offender case | Main | Ind. Courts - More on: "The public can now be the judge of whether a former South Bend Police officer used excessive force while arresting a man after a high speed chase" »
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Environment - "Hog Lawsuits Raising Stink in Missouri"
Bill Draper of the AP reports on agricultural nuisance. (For earlier ILB entries on the topic, see this list.) Sme quotes:
Hog odor lawsuits are nothing new. The issue of what constitutes an agricultural nuisance has been argued anywhere hogs are raised.The debate has new traction in Missouri, where some say flawed right-to-farm legislation encourages multimillion-dollar lawsuits like the ones against Premium Standard and its Virginia-based owner, Smithfield Foods.
In an internal memo accidentally e-mailed to The Kansas City Star last year, Smithfield attorneys estimated the company's exposure to litigation against Premium Standard at $150 million to $200 million. Smithfield, the world's largest pork producer, purchased Premium Standard in 2007.
Speer says he has at least 350 cases pending in Missouri against large hog operations. In contrast, only three were on file in Iowa, the nation's biggest pork-producing state with more than six times the number of hogs Missouri produces. Unlike Iowa's hog farms, which Speer says are traditionally family-run, Speer's targets in Missouri -- the seventh-largest hog state -- are corporate mega-farms.
"In Missouri, there is no limit to the amount a plaintiff can recover for an alleged nuisance, no matter how slight," Smithfield said in a statement to The Associated Press. "The potential for an unlimited recovery for a minor injury makes Missouri extremely attractive to out-of-state plaintiffs lawyers looking for big paydays."
Posted by Marcia Oddi on September 23, 2009 02:35 PM
Posted to Environment