Positive Outcomes Have Eluded Farmers in Recent Lawsuits--What Went Wrong?

When lawyers went door to door signing up clients so they could sue Smithfield Foods two of Joey Carter’s neighbors signed up.

At the trial four other neighbors of Joey Carter testified for him. One told the jury: “It’s not what they say. There is not an odor, and I live so close to the farm I can hear the feeders run out in the hog house.” Another said: “We live next door. My wife and kids, we walk on the farm and near it. There’s no issue, no concern, no odor.” A third testified what was being said about Joey Carter’s farm did not make sense. And a fourth testified: “I hate to feel like an innocent man is going down.”

A fifth witness, the local postwoman, told the jury, “I can’t tell you the last time I’ve smelled odor from the farm.” Day in and day out, that postwoman had delivered mail to Joey Carter’s farm and she couldn’t recall the last time she smelled odor.

In addition, a respected scientist who’d done studies at Joey Carter’s farm had found no objectionable odor.

So how did Joey Carter’s farm end up on the losing end of the lawsuit?

First, the jury never heard the respected scientist’s testimony about odor. The lawyer suing Smithfield Foods filed a motion to block her testimony and the judge agreed.

Second, the jury never heard about lawyers promising the two neighbors who sued Joey Carter that they’d make money if they won the lawsuit. The lawyer who filed the lawsuit made a motion to block that testimony as well and the judge agreed.

Third, the jurors were never allowed to visit Joey Carter’s farm because the judge blocked that too.

And, finally, at the trial the jurors were told the lawsuit wasn’t against Joey Carter – it was against Smithfield Foods. That statement was technically true. But the hard fact is the jury’s verdict – it awarded the two people who sued $25 million – put Joey Carter out of business.

You have to wonder: How could these things happen in an American courtroom? They shouldn’t. But that’s why Americans have the right to appeal unfair verdicts to higher courts. And that’s where the road to justice leads for Joey Carter: Straight to the Court of Appeals.

This is the sixth part to a six part series.

A Jury of Peers? Who Decides the Fate of Farmers in Hog Nuisance Cases?

Every person has a right to a trial by a jury of their peers. That legal theory is simple but, sometimes, in a courtroom it turns out to be complicated.

The hog farm trials against Smithfield Foods have been tried in a federal courthouse in Raleigh. And most of the jurors have been from suburban areas around Raleigh – while the farms being sued are in rural areas. In all likelihood, most of the jurors had never set foot on a hog farm.

Why does that matter? It means most of what the jurors knew about hog farming, when they reached their verdict, they’d learned in the courtroom in Raleigh. And what they believed was true about hog farming probably boiled down to which lawyer made the most persuasive case. On the other hand, a jury made up of people from rural areas – the actual peers of farmers – would have had first-hand knowledge about hog farming to help them judge whether what the lawyers were saying was true.

Early in the trials, Smithfield Foods lawyers made a motion – they said, we’d like to take the jury to the hog farm that’s being sued so they can see it for themselves. The lawyers who were suing Smithfield Foods didn’t like that idea at all. They didn’t want jurors to see the farm. And the judge agreed with them. Which is hard to understand. The lawyers suing Smithfield Foods say the farm is atrocious and stinks and the lawyers for Smithfield say, well, let’s take the jurors down there and let them see for themselves – but then the judge says, no way.

So, in the end, a jury – with people on it who’ve probably never set foot on a hog farm – decided the fate of a rural farm. So, was telling a farmer no, you can’t take these jurors to see your farm, a step towards or a step away from justice?

This is part 5 in a 6 part series

Justice for Farmers in the Courtroom?

In one trial, the lawyer suing Smithfield Foods told jurors 30% of Smithfield Foods’ hogs are exported while the waste stays here. But, in fact, 30% of the pork raised in North Carolina is not exported.

Here’s another fact twist: Michael Kaeske told a jury that the neighborhood where his client, the plaintiff, lived – beside Joey Carter’s farm – had been there before the farm was built. It was a backdoor way to tell the jury the plaintiff had lived there first. The facts? The neighborhood had been there first but the plaintiff didn’t move into the neighborhood until after Joey Carter built his farm.

Michael Kaeske also claimed that Smithfield Foods never did a study to determine what ‘Super Soils’ would cost. But Smithfield funded a study by North Carolina State University to determine if Super Soils were cost-effective. The research showed they weren’t. But Kaeske didn’t mention that.

That’s just three examples. There were more. And they all led to one question: How does twisting facts in a Raleigh courtroom lead to justice?