The North Carolina state legislature gave final approval on Wednesday to a bill that restricts nuisance lawsuits against farms and other livestock operations.
The state General Assembly voted 74 to 45 on Wednesday to override Governor Roy Cooper’s veto of the North Carolina Farm Act. On Tuesday, North Carolina’s state Senate also voted to override the veto.
Under the new law, a nuisance lawsuit cannot be filed unless it is done within a year of the establishment of the agricultural operation on which the complaint is focused or within a year of “fundamental change” in the operation. “Fundamental change” does not include changes in ownership, technology, product or size of the operation.
The law also limits when punitive damages can be awarded. Only when a farm operator has a criminal conviction or has received a regulatory notice of violation that state farm laws were broken, such damages will not be allowed.
The legislation restores the state’s “right to farm” law after an April federal court ruling undermined the existing right to farm statutes of North Carolina by awarding over $50 million to 10 neighbors of a hog farm operated by Murphy-Brown and Smithfield Foods. That verdict was the first in a series of nuisance suits brought against the pork producer.
A 1995 North Carolina state law already limited how much hog farm neighbors can receive in damages if victorious at trial. A week after the April verdict, the same federal judge who presided over the trail reduced the damage sentence to $3.25 million to comply with the law.
“Overriding this veto and correcting Gov. Cooper’s unwise decision sends the clear message to our family farmers and rural communities that they have a voice in the legislature and that this General Assembly intends to give them the respect they deserve,” Senator Brent Jackson, a Sampson County Republican and farmer, said in a statement. “This was never a partisan issue or about politics, but about doing what is right, and I am glad we had bipartisan support in both chambers as we stand up for our farmers.”
