News

NC Right to Farm law did not stop lawsuit

North Carolina has a right-to-farm law but it did not keep a jury from deciding against a hog operation in favor of neighbors who filed a nuisance lawsuit.

Paul Goeringer, legal specialist with the University of Maryland Extension, tells Brownfield Ag News, North Carolina’s right to farm measure protects residents if they were there first, “When the ruling was made the judge relied on the fact that the plaintiffs’ residence in the vicinity of these hog farms showed evidence that either their houses or their property in some way had been a residence before the hog farm was established.”

The judge reduced the original judgement of $50-million-dollars against the Smithfield/Murphy-Brown hog operation to $3-Million-dollars for the plaintiffs because of caps in North Carolina law. But, Goering tells Brownfield, it is still a significant judgment and there are similar cases to follow in that state.

AUDIO: Interview with Paul Goeringer~