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Amarillo Globe-News
Sioux County District Judge Dewie J. Gaul ordered Pork Xtra LLC on Wednesday pay $100,000 to Joseph and Linda Gacke of Garfield Township near Rock Valley.
The Gackes sued Pork Xtra on June 13, 2000, alleging the company's 4,000-head hog farm near their home was a nuisance that attracted bugs and harmed their emotional and physical health.
They had sought punitive and compensatory damages as well as an injunction that could halt the farm's operations.
Gaul wrote in the ruling that he would not grant the injunction, "since the award here made will adequately compensate the plaintiffs."
Iowa courts usually have thrown out lawsuits by neighbors who alleged corporate farms were a nuisance, but the Iowa Civil Liberties Union filed a brief last summer, alleging that the law that gave big farms immunity [sic] violated citizens' legal rights.
Judge John Ackerman ruled in August that the law was unconstitutional because larger farms could interfere with the use of a neighbor's property and right to seek compensation.
Ackerman's action gave the Gackes the opportunity to proceed with their lawsuit and have their case tried in court.
The Gackes' attorney, Thomas Lipps of Algona, had said there wasn't any reason any industry should be immune from accountability.
Lipps has been critical of the law that protected confined livestock farms, saying it was actually designed to protect corporate farms.
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