RALEIGH, N.C. _ A jury on Wednesday ruled in favor of eight Sampson County, N.C. neighbors who sued the world's largest pork producer for bringing foul odors and excessive noise to their rural community.
Each plaintiff will be awarded between $100 and $75,000 in compensatory damages, the jury decided in federal court in Raleigh on Wednesday morning. The jury is expected to rule later Wednesday on punitive damages, which could reach into the hundreds of millions of dollars.
The federal case against Murphy-Brown centers around Sholar Farm in rural Sampson County, 80 miles south of Raleigh, where eight plaintiffs living around dead-end Moon Johnson Road seek unspecified damages.
The month-long trial began Nov. 14 in Raleigh, asking jurors to weigh how bad hog waste can smell and whether the nuisance of being its neighbor deserves a monetary award.
Sholar Farm has 6,000 hogs and 10 million gallons of waste in its lagoons, the plaintiffs' lead attorney, Michael Kaeske, said at the start of the trial last month.
Kaeske argued the plaintiffs cannot enjoy their property enough to host a family barbecue, let kids play outside or tend a garden.
This latest trial is the fourth such case against Murphy-Brown this year.
In August, a federal jury awarded $470 million to neighbors of a Pender County, N.C. farm run by Murphy-Brown, an award that was reduced due to a state cap on punitive damages.
