Source: Susan Kelly, MEATINGPLACE, 3/7/19



The North American Meat Institute is asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit to overturn a damage award in one of the nuisance lawsuits against Smithfield’s Murphy Brown hog business.

The Meat Institute said its amicus brief asserts that the hog producer was operating in compliance with comprehensive environmental regulations. It argues that the district court wrongly allowed Murphy-Brown to be found liable for punitive damages in the case.

The group filed the brief in McKiver v. Murphy Brown LLC along with the National Association of Manufacturers, the Grocery Manufacturers of America, the United States Chamber of Commerce, the National Turkey Federation and the National Chicken Council.

“That a court would allow punitive damages to be awarded against a company operating within its permit puts not only agricultural operations at risk, it puts any industry in North Carolina at risk for nuisance liability and punitive damages,” Meat Institute President and CEO Julie Anna Potts said in a statement.

The brief contends that nuisance actions should be governed by environmental statutes and regulations and not by standards that rely on judges’ and juries’ case-by-case determinations.

Murphy-Brown faces dozens of legal challenges over whether the company took adequate steps to manage hog waste in North Carolina. A state cap limited the damage award total for the first three lawsuits to just under $100 million.

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