Here’s a cert petition that we’ve been waiting to drop in a case we’ve been following. This one asks whether a state legislature’s virtual elimination of a cause of action is a taking.
The harsh reality is that farms and ranches can stink. But in Right to Farm Acts, many state legislatures, Indiana’s included, have concluded that farming and ranching are so important that the consequences (“negative externalities“) that naturally occur have to be accepted. One Indiana court summed up Right to Farm Acts as well as anyone when it noted, “so long as the human race consumes pork, someone must tolerate the smell.” Shatto v. McNulty, 509 N.E.2d 897, 900 (Ind. App. 1987). Let’s call it a “stink easement.”
Indiana’s version stands somewhat apart from others, however. Like many other states, it bars lawsuits which assert that a long-standing agricultural operation is a
