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 arises.

Why it matters: witnesses framed the bill as an attempt to give both farmers and neighbors clearer rules about what is allowed. They said unclear statutory language would make it difficult to dismiss frivolous suits because allegations about a plaintiff's health or enjoyment of property create disputed material facts that generally require trial. "If you want a plaintiff to be able to overcome the burden, it should at least be clear what's protected and what's not," Collier said.

Witnesses described real-world conflicts between farms and neighbors that typically do not result in litigation but can escalate when they do. Collier and others cited testimony that farms and farmland are declining — saying, for example, that in a recent five-year period the state lost about 11% of some measure of farmland, 5% of farms overall, and that dairy farms had declined by roughly 32% in the most recent five-year span — and argued that legal uncertainty increases risk for those operations. They repeatedly emphasized that the proposed bill is not intended to give farms a free pass: farms must continue to follow water-quality, pesticide, and manure-management rules, they said.

Speakers warned that a recent Vermont trial court had enjoined a farm because a manure pit located about a half-mile from a neighbor's home was found to be "noxious" in that case, even though the farm had not been shown to have violated manure-management rules. Collier said the ruling shows how courts confronted with vague statutory terms could issue injunctions that effectively curtail or shut down farm operations. "You could literally shut down Heather Darby's farm as an organic produce grower," he said, referring to testimony from an organic grower who described aggressive neighbor reactions when spreading chicken manure.

Committee members questioned frequency and scope of such outcomes. One member asked whether farms have been frequently shut down under current law; Collier replied the specific smell injunction he referenced was the only one he was aware of and reiterated that the main concern is the legal standard's vagueness and the difficulty of resolving such claims without trials. He said the Senate-passed language was designed to offer an objective standard courts can apply and that the House's reinsertion of health/safety/welfare language reintroduces subjectivity.

The discussion included repeated distinctions between public nuisance (addressed by state or municipal regulators under public-protection powers) and private nuisance (an objective test about substantial and unreasonable interference with use and enjoyment of property). Witnesses argued the House language blurs that line and shifts the practical burden toward subjective, individualized claims.

No formal vote or committee action was recorded in the transcript. Multiple speakers called for clearer statutory definitions if the legislature intends to preserve a plaintiff's ability to overcome nuisance protections; others suggested the matter could be resolved through a conference committee or bipartisan compromise so the final text sets an objective, administrable standard.

The committee heard no proposed amendments during the recorded discussion and took no formal action on the bill during the session covered by the transcript.