Senate Judiciary hears concerns that vague "health, safety, welfare" language could weaken farm nuisance protections

At a May 2020 Senate Judiciary meeting, witnesses including Steve Collier of the Agency of Agriculture told the committee that language the House reinserted into a farm-protection bill — notably references to a "substantial adverse effect on health, safety, or welfare" and a "noxious and significant interference" with neighboring use — could allow plaintiffs to overcome statutory nuisance protections even when farms comply with accepted practices.

The witnesses said the change would mix private-nuisance and public-nuisance standards and leave judges and juries to resolve highly subjective questions about individuals' health or sensitivity rather than applying an objective test. "The trespass issue, we think that the bill that the Senate passed is much better," Collier said, arguing the Senate version better limits protection to conduct on a farmer's own land and avoids insulating actual trespass. Collier also told the committee that "there's only 4 cases in the Vermont Supreme Court in the last 22 years," a figure he used to argue that the problem is small but consequential when it…