Smithfield Foods Ordered To Pay $473.5M For Pig Stench

[appalachiablue]

Source: CBS News

30 mins. ago.

RALEIGH, N.C. - A federal jury decided Friday that the world's largest pork producer should pay $473.5 million to neighbors of three North Carolina industrial-scale hog farms for unreasonable nuisances they suffered from odors, flies and rumbling trucks.

The jury found that Smithfield Foods owes compensation to six neighbors who complained in their lawsuit that the company failed to stop "the obnoxious, recurrent odors and other causes of nuisance" resulting from closely packed hogs, which "generate many times more sewage than entire towns."

The jury awarded $23.5 million in compensatory damages and $450 million in punitive damages, which will be reduced to a total of $94 million under limits in state law.

The case comes after two previous, related lawsuits rocked agribusiness in the country's No. 2 pork-producing state. Juries in those two cases awarded damages of about $75 million intended to punish Smithfield, though those amounts also were required to be cut...More...


Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/smithfield-foods-ordered-to-pay-dollar4735m-for-pig-stench/ar-BBLt7Zs?li=BBnbfcL

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North Carolina legislators reacted by adopting new barriers against nuisance lawsuits that all but eliminate the ability of neighbors to sue Smithfield Foods or any other agribusiness. Critics billed the legislation as an attack on private property rights in order to protect a well-heeled industry.

Industry group the North Carolina Pork Council decried the jury's decision in a statement warning that it could lead to more lawsuits across the country. "This verdict will spread from eastern North Carolina to all corners of American agriculture," the group said, calling for an appeal of the decision they described as unfair and unjust.

Environmental advocates said there's good reason pork producers have been getting hit with penalties.







July 21, 2017, a hog waste pond is seen at a farm that has hogs owned by Smithfield Foods in Farmville, N.C. (Assoc. Press).

[elfin]

1. Smithfield Foods is owned by China

I doubt they are all that concerned with our environment. Wonder if they will even pay up.

[appalachiablue]

2. Bought a few yrs. ago by the Chinese, same doubts about $.

The abuse, environmental & human damage from these agricultural systems is dangerous and must be curbed.

[Kotya]

9. The lawyers will get paid first.

The plaintiffs may be waiting a while.

[Sunlei]

11. It's just a fine .NC 'elected' passed new laws to make it harder to sue.

North Carolina legislators reacted by adopting new barriers against nuisance lawsuits that all but eliminate the ability of neighbors to sue Smithfield Foods or any other agribusiness.

[miyazaki]

3. Who runs Bartertown? nt

[paleotn]

4. Master Blaster

runs Bartertown.

[Equinox Moon]

5. We have an area in our state with pig farms...

a new massive one was just approved and the houses are going up for sale in droves, all at bargain prices.

[catbyte]

6. Smithfield's is the worst of the worst in factory farms. Avoid anything even remotely connected

with that horror show.

[Bayard]

7. Dairy farms in CA

They finally closed down those waste lagoons. They were horrid. Smell them for miles.

I have a solution for Smithfield's hog waste: Ship it to China.

[Sunlei]

8. "Smithfield has continued using the low-cost method,helps produce pork for less then china"

Lawyers for the neighbors said Smithfield hasn't taken measures that would minimize the nuisances, for example by sending trucks along a back road to pick up hogs for slaughter in the middle of the night instead of rumbling past sleeping homes. Nor has the company covered the waste pits or otherwise tried to capture the smell and bacteria resulting from pooling liquefied waste, lawyers for the neighbors said. The company has done that in Missouri and Colorado, attorneys said.

The predominant method of handling hog waste in North Carolina is collecting it in open-air pits that are emptied by spraying liquid excrement on farm fields. The method was banned at new livestock operations in 1997, when industrial-scale hog operations began to be planned near the Pinehurst golf resort two years before it would host the U.S. Open tournament.

Smithfield has continued using the low-cost method because it helps the company produce pork for less than in China, lawyers for the neighbors said. Smithfield is owned by Hong Kong-headquartered WH Group, which posted profits of about $1 billion last year.

[Sunlei]

10. in 2004, 05 worked with groups to shut down foreign owned slaughter-that bankrupted a town

Town had to take the business to court almost 100 times, business dragged the cases out for many years. Through court records it was shown the foreign owned business paid $5.00 in federal taxes. cost the town millions to fight in courts.

Finally the slaughter house shut down due to federal law in 2007 and the town of Kaufman, Texas quickly passed a town ordinance to not allow any slaughter industry again.

These factory farms and slaughter houses, don't care at all about ecology, animal abuse or any damages to local environment or the health of humans who live near, work in OR eat what is produced.

All about the profit.

[tavernier]

12. Awful bacon and hams. Briny and tasteless.

Now I can see why. Obviously profit is their only concern.

[mitch96]

13. If you have ever been near a pig farm

or rode behind a truck full of pigs.. it's an experience.. It physically hurts your eyes, nose and throat. I could not stand it.. Pigshit is nasty stuff...
m

[RandiFan1290]

14. Spy Drones Expose Smithfield Foods Factory Farms