Source: Will Doran, THE STATE, 11/19/20


A federal appeals court overturned a jury’s multi-million-dollar verdict from Eastern North Carolina against the pork company Murphy Brown in a major hog farm pollution case on Thursday. The judges ruled it was unfair to the Smithfield subsidiary that the jury knew how much the companies’ top executives are paid. Specifically, a lawyer for the Bladen County residents who sued over the hog waste pollution said: “They willfully choose not to do anything about it ... but yet they pay $245 million to four people over four years. That’s the kind of money they can spend when they want to.”

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