Indiana Animal Agriculture wins one !!!!!!!!

Court Declares Indiana Right to Farm Act Constitutional
06/04/2009 Andy Eubank
A legal ruling in Indiana earlier this year is being called a landmark decision on right to farm act issues across the U.S. The Lindsey family of rural Huntington County filed a nuisance suit in late 2003. They claimed the nuisance included manure smells and flies from the neighboring DeGroot Dairy operation. The Indiana court of appeals rejected the Lindsey’s argument and declared the Indiana Right to Farm Act constitutional. That law was passed in 1981 to shield farmers from nuisance law suits.Attorney, and former Kansas cattle and wheat farmer, Todd Janzen, of Plews Shadley Racher & Braun in Indianapolis, litigated the case for DeGroot. He told Hoosier Ag Today, “This is one of the few cases in the whole United States where courts have examined this particular point and upheld right to farm acts on constitutional grounds. So I think it is certainly an important case for Indiana farmers, because it means if you build a farm or expand an existing farm in an established agricultural area, you cannot be judged a nuisance by a court of law just because your farm creates those smells, and sights, and sounds that are commonly associated with farming.”The Indiana case is very significant because the Iowa Supreme Court had previously invalidated the Iowa Right to Farm Act, calling it government taking without compensation. Janzen said, “The logic of the Iowa Supreme Court was that if you allow one land owner to place sounds and smells from their land onto the land of another, and then you create a statutory immunity for that person, then in essence you have taken someone’s property without compensating them.”
Janzen told HAT the Lindsey’s made the same argument against DeGroot Dairy, but fell short in the appeals court in January. “Fortunately the Indiana Court of Appeals rejected this argument and said that, we find nothing in Indiana’s law that suggests that Indiana has adopted this unique holding from the Iowa jurisdiction. And so, the Indiana Right to Farm Act is constitutional.”The litigation against DeGroot continued even after the farm had been transferred to another owner.Here more from Todd Janzen at hatchat.net, and read a portion of the Indiana Court’s opinion at the Indiana Law Blog.