Pennsylvania State University’s Dickinson School of Law has released their September, 2009 issue of The Agricultural Law Brief, and included in the issue are updates on some current lawsuits that involve agriculture in Pennsylvania.First, Ross Pifer provides an update in Commonwealth v. East Brunswick Township, No. 476 M.D. 2007, 2009 WL 2568075 (Pa. Commw. Ct. Aug. 21, 2009). According to the update, the Commonwealth Court has overruled preliminary objections the East Brunswick Township filed that sought “to dismiss the Attorney General’s challenge to its biosolids ordinance.” East Brunswick enacted an ordinance in 2006 that imposed restrictions and prohibitions for the “on land application of biosolids.” Following the enactment, the Attorney General’s office filed suit under the Agriculture, Communities, and Rural Environments Act (ACRE) that alleged the ordinances regulated what are considered “normal agricultural operations.”
The Attorney General also asserted the township’s ordinance was preempted by the state Solid Waste Management Act (SWMA), as well as other state statutes. As Pifer writes, “municipalities are not preempted by the SWMA from enacting zoning ordinances, the regulation of ‘how, when, and where sewage waste may be used to fertilize farmland’ is not permitted.” Despite the ruling being limited “because of the case’s procedural posture,” the court did find the SWMA preempted several, perhaps all, of the “ordinance’s provisions.”
The second case involves a nuisance suit against a poultry farm. Joshua Wilkins reports that on August 14, 2009, the Court of Common Pleas “denied plaintiffs’ motion for post-trial relief [in the suit] against a Snyder County poultry operation.” The case is Remaley v. Zook, No. CV-0580-2007 (Snyder Ct. Com. Pl. Aug. 14, 2009). The plaintiffs in the case have alleged that the defendants’ poultry operation is emitting odors that are interfering with the plaintiffs’ use and enjoyment of their property. The defendants’ property is located in an Agricultural Security Area. It has been used as a dairy farm since 1979, and in 2007 a poultry operation was added.
As Wilkins writes that, “Following a non-jury trial, the court held that the plaintiffs had failed to establish that the defendants’ conduct was unreasonable. Thus, the plaintiffs had not proven the existence of a nuisance.” The court also noted that, despite its sympathies for the plaintiffs, the plaintiffs chose to live in the agricultural area. In the post-trial ruling the Court affirmed its previous ruling in favor of the poultry operation.
To learn more about these cases or to read the Dickinson School of Law’s Agricultural Law Brief, click here.
Posted: 09/02/09
