Court Opinion

ID: 9741066
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:49:00.732555+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:22.101940
License: Public Domain

McCown, J.,
dissenting.
The majority opinion tacitly concedes that the evidence fails to establish negligence by the defendants in operating the feedlots. The majority opinion also concedes that in the rural agricultural area involved here “almost every farm has a relatively small cattle-feeding operation.”
The record shows that the Department of Environmental Control of the State of Nebraska and its Agricultural Pollution Control Division made inspections of defendants’ feedlots both in 1973 and 1974, and determined that the operation of the feedlots here was not in violation of any rules and regulations of the department pertaining to livestock waste control. The chief of the Agricultural Pollution Control Division also testified that controls on waste handling and removal systems were not required by the department unless the wastes polluted the waters of the state or created a nuisance. The inevitable conclusion is that under the departmental rules a nuisance did not exist at the times of the inspections.
The evidence also establishes that there are several feedlots in the immediate area with capacity of 300 to 500 head, and many of lesser capacity. At least one feedlot with a capacity of 10,000 head is located some 14 miles south of the location of these feedlots. Cattle had been kept on the area now used by defendants’ feedlots for approximately 90 years. As early as 1946, there were some 1,100 head of cattle on feed there. Two of the dams involved here had been constructed more *59than 20 years prior to trial. Two more were added in 1969. The defendants’ operation at its peak averaged approximately 3,000 head in 1972. Since that time there was a gradual diminution of cattle until, in November and December of 1974, the total number kept in the defendants’ feedlots was approximately 300.
The District Court specifically found that the feedlots operated by the defendants are not a nuisance per se and that there was insufficient evidence upon which to base a finding of negligence, and granted defendants’ motion to dismiss. The majority opinion now holds that evidence of intolerable odors on many days and a substantial increase in the number of flies is sufficient to constitute a prima facie case for the granting of a mandatory injunction against a cattle feedlot operation conducted without negligence in the rural agricultural area of Nebraska. Apparently the court has somehow taken judicial notice that a large cattle feeding operation can be reasonably conducted without excessive odors or flies. The record will not support that conclusion, nor does it warrant the granting of injunctive relief here.
White, C. J., joins in this dissent.