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Judge: Jury won't take smell tour of NC hog farm

A federal judge decided Monday he won't send jurors for a see-and-sniff tour of a North Carolina hog-growing operation at the center of a lawsuit claiming industrial-scale pork production creates smells too foul to live near.

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RALEIGH, N.C. — A federal judge decided Monday he won't send jurors for a see-and-sniff tour of a North Carolina hog-growing operation at the center of a lawsuit claiming industrial-scale pork production creates smells too foul to live near.

Jurors wouldn't get a true feel for conditions with one quick visit to a Bladen County farm growing animals for Murphy-Brown LLC, the hog production division of Virginia's Smithfield Foods, U.S. District Judge W. Earl Britt ruled.

"Plaintiffs' odor and other complaints, of course, cover a much longer period. Conditions when jurors visit would not necessarily be substantially similar to what plaintiffs experienced at a given time," Britt wrote in his order.

The decision came as a jury was selected for a trial that could shake the profits and change production methods of pork producers who have raised hogs in confined conditions for the past generation. The trial, the first of 26 nuisance lawsuits against Murphy-Brown covering more than 540 plaintiffs, could take six weeks.

The 10 plaintiffs involved in the first lawsuit all live near the Kinlaw hog farm in White Oak area of Bladen County. Their families owned and lived on nearby properties before the farm started operations in 1995, and they argue that the hog farm has devastated their property values.

They say they can no longer use their property as they used to because of the stench from the hog waste lagoons and dead animals. They contend they're also plagued by flies and pests attracted to the farm, which can hold more than 14,000 hogs, and that hog waste even drifts into their homes when it's sprayed onto nearby fields.

Industry lawyers asked for the farm visit so jurors could decide what they think about the smells and flies.

"The presence or absence of odor, as well as the level of its severity at any given time and place, is the most difficult of the five senses to attempt to convey to a jury. No photograph or video or other evidence or demonstrative can provide the jury with an adequate representation of the alleged odor conditions," industry attorneys said in one court filing.

That's funny, lawyers for the neighbors said, since the proposed jury tour was requested just as the farm was removing millions of gallons of waste, something that "never before occurred in the 23-year history of this operation."

The farm and its owners, who raise hogs under contract with Murphy-Brown, are not defendants. Instead, the target is the company that set specific standards of how the farm must operate.

Murphy-Brown has fought the lawsuits for the past four years, saying that it is protected by the state's right-to-farm laws and that it is in compliance with all state regulations. Britt ruled against the company in November, however.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs say there are better technologies available to manage hog waste, and Murphy-Brown should require suppliers to use them.

Last year, legislators changed state law to limit nuisance damages in future lawsuits.

Rep. Jimmy Dixon, R-Duplin, a recipient of campaign contributions from hog farmers, pushed to make the law retroactive, which would have limited damages in these cases as well. But that part of the proposal was voted down when other lawmakers questioned its constitutionality.

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