After losing a $4.5 million judgement to three families in northwest Missouri who contended that stench from their hog farm created a nuisance, Premium Standard Farms settled a lawsuit that required the company to pay only actual damages and not punitive damages.
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A Jackson County jury on Friday found PSF liable in the suit for both actual and punitive damages. However, the company will only pay the actual damages, which will be awarded to each of five individuals and an estate who were plaintiffs in the lawsuit. Receiving $750,000 each are John Arnold, Carlotta Arnold, Leslie Turner, Denise Turner, David Gwinn and the estate of Gwinn’s father, Roy Gwinn.
The property owners or former property owners near a hog farm near Trenton are part of a wider lawsuit that includes more than 50 cases still to be tried. A separate class action lawsuit involving a consortium of law firms seeks to represent anyone who owns property within 10 miles of the company’s more than 20 hog farms in Missouri.