Randolph County Circuit Court Judge Marianne L. Vorhees dismissed the case against Maxwell Farms of Indiana and local farmers in late January, granting summary judgment after finding no evidence of negligence on the part of Maxwell Farms or its contracted operators. Four similar nuisance suits against the company were dismissed by Judge Vorhees in 2014.
Bob Ivey, President of Maxwell farms, is happy finally have the issue resolved.
“Our employees and contract growers go above and beyond to comply with regulations that protect the environment,” Ivey said.
Beginning in late 2009 and early 2010, attorneys Richard Hailey of Indianapolis, Ind., Charles Speer and Britt Bieri of Kansas City, Mo. and Richard Middleton of Savannah, Ga., brought five lawsuits based on negligence and nuisance in Randolph County, Indiana, on behalf of neighbors against Maxwell Farms of Indiana and several individual farmers. The complaints stated that the basis for the suits was the odor created by the production of hogs, improper handling of manure waste and dead hogs, fly generation and leaks of manure from the barns on to neighbors’ property. Although water pollution was raised, no Clean Water Act violations were alleged. At that time, the four attorneys reportedly vowed to make Randolph County “ground zero” in a legal fight over how Indiana produces pork.
OFW Law’s Gary Baise and Anson Keller represented Maxwell Farms in all five cases. In the first four cases, depositions of the plaintiffs showed that they knew nothing about improper handling of manure waste, improper handling of dead hogs, or any leaks of manure from the barns on to their property. They claimed that those allegations came from their lawyers.
OFW Law moved for summary judgment in all five cases, and at no time did plaintiffs attempt to show any evidence of negligence or negligent operation of the hog farms in any of the five cases. The trial court judge, Marianne Vorhees, a special judge sitting in Muncie, IN, found that the elements of the Indiana Right to Farm statute had been met.
Maxwell Farms of Indiana (MFI), located in Hagerstown, is a swine production company established by the Maxwell family of Goldsboro, NC. Since 1916, the Maxwell family has grown their feed and agriculture businesses by partnering with local farm families and communities to establish sustainable production agriculture systems. MFI currently partners with 50 family farms in East Central Indiana to produce more than 200 million pounds of pork annually.
The Indiana Right to Farm Act requires nuisance suits to be filed within one year after the agricultural operation begins, unless the nuisance is the result of negligence.
The farms had been in existence for more than one year before the lawsuits began, there had been no change in circumstances in the operation of any of the farms, and there was no evidence provided by the plaintiffs to show the farms had been a nuisance at the time that the farms began operation. After a thorough briefing by OFW Law and the Indiana Attorney General, Judge Vorhees also found that the Indiana Right to Farm statute was constitutional. The plaintiffs’ appealed four of the cases, but subsequently dropped the appeals.
“We take pride in being a good neighbor, and this court ruling supports that fact,” Ivey said.
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