15/07/2025
🐮SD Supreme Court affirmed the jury's split decision in this dairy case. The farmer claimed the defendant sold him contaminated feed, allegedly killing livestock. The jury sided with the farmer, BUT they awarded $0 compensation.
The decision discussed "accord and satisfaction," a principle of contract law, but I was much more drawn to the allegations of a contaminated jury pool. That argument was not enough to reverse the verdict. In SD, you really only need ten out of twelve jurors to win in a civil case, so even if, for the sake of argument, one juror was biased for the defense, it's not what lawyers call "prejudicial" enough to reverse the decision.
⚠️In my view, a major hazard in farm litigation in general is the performance of the defense expert witness, usually hired by the insurance company to shift blame from the defendant to the farmer's practices and put the farmer on trial instead. It's unpleasant to me because I've never met a farmer who isn't putting in great effort at personal risk to life and limb. On the other hand, the insurance industry needs best practices goalposts. Farm practices must constantly improve to remain competitive in our economic system.
