By Charlotte Smith
The fourth hog farm trial out of more than twenty started the second week of November. The holidays have assisted in stretching out the time frame of the fourth court case involving the hog farming industry.
Last week closing arguments were heard from both sides and the jury went into deliberation. As of Wednesday morning, there has been no news as to the jury’s verdict.
Judge David Faber of West Virginia replaced Judge Earl Britt on the bench to hear the fourth case involving nuisance claims. The defendants in the first three cases made claims of unfair treatment during the first three the lawsuits. The previous three lawsuits landed historic payouts awarding the plaintiff multi millions of dollars for their nuisance claims.
The current case against Murphy-Brown, LLC a subsidiary of Smithfield Foods has Sholar Farm in Sampson County under scrutiny. The farm is about 80 miles south of Raleigh. In the Sholar Farm case, eight plaintiffs, country neighbors living around the hog farm, are asking for unspecified damages due to years of nuisances due to odor, truck noise and flies.
The same Texas lawyer from the first three lawsuits, Michael Kaeske, is leading the plaintiffs’ proceedings again, but the defense added a new attorney to their team for the fourth trial. Robert Thackston a lawyer from Dallas, Texas lead the defense team with new research and disputes to contradict the plaintiff’s reasoning of the trial.
The jury was scheduled to continue deliberation today. We will bring you updated news as soon as it is made available about the verdict in this case.
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https://www.ncpork.org/category/beyond-bacon-the-blog/
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