Court upholds nuisance verdicts against hog-production giant

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A federal appeals court on Thursday upheld a 2018 jury verdict that led to awarding monetary damages to neighbors of a North Carolina industrial hog operation for smells and noise they said made living nearby unbearable.

But judges ruled the jurors' massive multimillion-dollar awards — intended to penalize a subsidiary of the world's largest pork producer for wrongdoing — were unfairly weighed against the its corporate assets and must be reconsidered. The decision by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, could affect similar nuisance cases filed by North Carolina rural residents already on appeal that went against Smithfield Foods or haven't gone to trial.

A majority on the three-judge panel rejected the arguments of attorneys for Murphy-Brown LLC that a new trial should be ordered. Murphy-Brown is a subsidiary of Smithfield, which in turn is owned by Hong Kong-based WH Group Limited.

The jurors found the company liable for the nuisance conditions at a Bladen County farm in eastern North Carolina that raised 15,000 hogs annually for the company and disposed of massive amounts of feces and urine there. The neighbors of Kinlaw Farms had filed suit, complaining they had suffered for years from intense, putrid smells coming from open-air hog waste lagoons. They alleged that Smithfield Foods refused to spend money on technology that could address these problems.

The jurors declared Murphy-Brown interfered with the enjoyment of the residents' property. The 10 neighbors received a total of $750,000 in compensation, plus $50 million in damages designed to punish Smithfield and WH Group. North Carolina state law forced U.S. District Judge Earl Britt to cut the punitive damages to $2.5 million.

Writing the prevailing opinion, U.S. Circuit Judge Stephanie Thacker rejected...