JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — A Missouri House committee endorsed a revised version of a bill to limit nuisance lawsuits against farms and agricultural businesses Tuesday, acting quickly after Gov. Jay Nixon vetoed a prior version of the legislation.
Nixon had indicated during his veto Monday that he would be willing to accept a revised bill if lawmakers backed off their proposed restrictions on punitive damages for farm-related lawsuits and clarified that the limits applied only to agricultural nuisances, not other types of annoying actions such as noisy neighbors.
A House agribusiness committee voted to advance the new legislation Tuesday. To go to the governor, it still must pass the full House and Senate before the session ends May 13.
The measure retains a limit on the number of times people can file nuisance lawsuits over such issues as foul odors from large hog farms, but it would allow for punitive damages in farm lawsuits that involve nuisances. Plaintiffs could also recover damages for crop losses or medical harm caused by agricultural nuisances.
"If something has happened that there has been a negligent act that they can prove, punitive damages are still eligible," said sponsoring Sen. Brad Lager, R-Savannah.
Rep. Casey Guernsey, who sponsored the legislation Nixon rejected, said the new version would closely resemble the bill the governor had vetoed.
"I don't have any problem with those changes whatsoever," said Guernsey, R-Bethany. "If I'd have known those were the changes he wanted, I'd have made them earlier."
Lager said large farming operations need protections from multiple lawsuits because of the role agriculture has in the state's economy.
"No industry — not even agriculture — can withstand long-term, unlimited lawsuits," Lager said. "If we are going to have a strong and dynamic agriculture industry ... there has to be a reasonable and fair regulatory world in litigation."
Nixon had said some of original bill's wording could have applied the limits on nuisance lawsuits to more than just farms. He also objected to a provision he said would have forbidden punitive damages in nuisance lawsuits related to livestock and crop production and thus "turns back decades of Missouri common law."
Under the new bill, lawsuits alleging a temporary nuisance against agricultural entities could seek compensatory damages based on the decline in the property's fair market rental value. If neighboring property owners filed multiple lawsuits against the same farming operation for the same nuisance, it would be considered a permanent nuisance and compensatory damages would be awarded based on decreases in the property's fair market value.
The legislation Nixon vetoed had limited all the damages a plaintiff could recover using those criteria, without specifying whether it was referring to compensatory damages or total damages. Because the new legislation specified that the fair market value would only be used to determine compensatory damages, additional punitive damages could be awarded.
Tim Gibbons, a spokesman for the Missouri Rural Crisis Center, said Tuesday that the new legislation was not significantly different from the measure that Nixon had vetoed because it maintains limits on the number of lawsuits.
"It's not a compromise," he said. "This bill is not protecting the people of Missouri; it's doing the exact opposite."
The legislative proposals come after hog-producer Premium Standard Farms — a major employer in northern Missouri —warned last year that it might have to leave the state if it continued to be targeted by nuisance lawsuits. Such lawsuits have resulted in multimillion-dollar awards against the company, including an $11 million award to a group of 15 northwest Missouri residents.