Posted September 4, 2013
A U.S. District Court judge denied defendants’ motion for $3 million dollars in attorneys’ fees in a Maryland water pollution case, according to Lisa M. Keefe from Meatingplace.com.
According to the Meatingplace.com article, available here, the Waterkeeper Alliance sued Hudson, a Perdue Farms grower, in 2010 alleging that “the poultry farm was a source of pollution in the Chesapeake watershed.” Perdue and the Hudson farm “prevailed when the court ruled that the Waterkeeper Alliance had not met the standard of ‘preponderance of evidence’ in its argument.” Together, the defendants asked for about $3 million in fees and costs. U.S. District Judge William M. Nickerson stated that the “Court cannot find that defendants’ request for the award of attorneys’ fees satisfies the applicable standard for the award of such fees.” In addition, he stated that the Waterkeeper Alliance “was not seriously working to settle this matter” and noted his disappointment that “no agreement that could have actually benefitted the Chesapeake Bay came from these negotiations.” The order denying attorneys’ fees is available here.
The Waterkeeper Alliance sued Perdue and the Alan and Kristin Hudson Farm near Berlin, Md., “using a provision of the Clean Water Act to seek enforcement for what the group viewed as uncontrolled releases of poultry wastes, according to an article by The News Journal. The organization member “claimed that poultry house fans and farming activities produced dust and runoff that polluted and damaged the Pocomoke River.”
The Waterkeeper Alliance released a statement by director Marc Yaggi, available here. Yaggi said that the organization was pleased with Judge Nickerson’s decision to deny Perdue’s motion for attorneys’ fees and that citizen enforcement suits “help safeguard environmental and public health.” Perdue, the Hudsons, and The Maryland Family Farmers Legal Defense Fund Inc. said in separate statements that they were disappointed in the ruling. Perdue said the motion for attorneys’ fees was intended to make groups like Waterkeeper “think twice about pursuing legal action that uses hard-working American families as pawns in their attack on modern agriculture.”
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