A case heard by the Iowa Supreme Court on Monday could have a dramatic effect on whether communities can sue factory farms that move into their neighborhoods. The case was brought by a group of community members against a pair of hog confinement operations run by Valley View Swine and JBS. It challenges the constitutionality of a state law that protects farming operations from “nuisance lawsuits.”
Sometimes called “right-to-farm” laws, laws protecting farmers from nuisance lawsuits exist in many states. They prevent farmers from being sued for the smells, sounds, and other inconveniences they create in the course of typical farming. The plaintiffs in the case are seeking to have Iowa’s state law declared unconstitutional. The defendants say that the law should be upheld, and that their confinement operations were built more than twice the legally required distance from the plaintiffs’ homes.
The community members say that since the hog operations moved in, they’ve suffered from burning eyes and throats, nausea, depression, and other health problems. They also say they’ve been unable to open their windows, sit on their porches, and otherwise enjoy their properties.
In many states, meatpackers and farm groups have pushed to expand the nuisance protection granted by right-to-farm laws. Environmental and community advocates have argued that in their expanded forms, the laws make it nearly impossible to regulate the environmental and health effects of factory farming.