Judge says Chinese ownership irrelevant

Sunday, October 4, 2015

References to the Chinese government, the Communist Party and China's People's Liberation Army are "highly prejudicial" and must be edited out of statements of claim against large pig farms, a North Carolina judge has ruled.

According to Associated Press, U.S. District Judge W. Earl Britt agreed with pork industry leaders that Chinese ownership of Murphy-Brown LLC has nothing to do with recently filed nuisance complaints against the farms, operating since the 1990s. Smithfield Foods bought Murphy-Brown in 2000, and was subsequently taken over by WH Group, based in China, in 2013.

The judge did not excise allegations regarding exports to China, and Chinese demand for and purchase of pork, because those allegations address a potential source of the alleged nuisance and "provide potentially useful contextual information." The lawsuit contends that Chinese demand for more pork will only increase demand for more North Carolina pork. BF