The sixth case of nuisance lawsuits targeting hog farmers in North Carolina, originally set to begin Monday, has been delayed.
The case involves Murphy-Brown against several neighbors of a farm in Sampson County owned by the Butler family. Like five cases before it, the company that is a subsidiary of Virginia-based Smithfield Foods — owned by Hong Kong-based WH Group — is the named defendant, but if plaintiffs win the trial the farm would be unable to continue hog farming at that location.
The delay is expected to be 45 days.
North Carolina’s $11 billion hog farming industry, which produces 46,000 jobs, has been dealt losses in all five cases thus far. Juries have awarded plaintiffs awards totaling more than half a billion dollars, though punitive damage caps the award at much less.
The cases are being heard in a Raleigh federal courtroom for the Eastern District of North Carolina. Jurors are selected from that metropolitan area.
The state has four of the top 15 hog production counties in the nation, with Sampson and Duplin ranked first and second. Bladen was 11th and Wayne 13th in numbers most recently available.
Several lawmakers, in North Carolina and in Washington, have joined state agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler in denouncing the litigation spurred by Michael Kaeske of Texas. Over several years, he’s formed a lineup of cases believed to number 26.
Settlement talks, thus far, have been unsuccessful.
In the first five, plaintiffs are yet to lose. Two of the cases had ties to Bladen County, one involving Billy Kinlaw of White Oak that ended April 26 of last year and one that involved Elizabethtown-based HD3 Farms of the Carolinas’ subsidiary Greenwood Livestock LLC in Pender County that ended Aug. 3.
The case involving the Kinlaw farm ended with an award of $50.75 million that was reduced to $3.25 million by the punitive damages law.
The second case ended June 29 and involved the Joey Carter Farm near Beulaville. A jury awarded $25.13 million in damages; the punitive cap reduced the amount to $630,000.
The third case involving Greenwood included a jury award of $450 million in punitive damages and $23.5 million in compensatory, with state law reducing the combined amount to $94 million.
In the fourth trial, the Sholar Farm in Sampson County was targeted. Jurors on Dec. 12 awarded eight neighbors between $100 and $75,000 each in compensatory damages. The punitive damages phase of the trial was tossed by the judge, leaving a combined award to the eight of $102,400.
The last case to finish ended March 8 and was the second involving a farm of Carter. The 10 plaintiffs were awarded $420,000, with compensatory $139,000 and punitive $281,000. Kaeske had asked jurors to award each of the 10 between $30 million and $50 million, or up to a combined half-billion dollars.
Lawyers for Smithfield Foods have appeals processes underway.