Idaho Supreme Court upholds new trial in area crop loss case
Lawsuit filed by Wilder farmers against J.R. Simplot
By REBECCA BOONE
Associated Press
Sunday, May 4, 2008 2:38 AM PDT
BOISE — The Idaho Supreme Court has upheld a ruling granting a new trial in a lawsuit by a pair of Wilder farmers against J.R. Simplot Co.
The unanimous ruling issued Thursday upholds the decision of 3rd District Judge Gregory Culet.
Greg Obendorf and Boyd Gray sued Simplot and the Terra Hug Spray Co. in 2002, contending the companies were responsible for the improper application of herbicide to their asparagus fields, killing the plants and forcing the farmers to plow under the asparagus and replant with a different crop.
In 1999 the farmers contracted with Simplot to apply herbicides to their fields, according to Supreme Court documents. Simplot, in turn, hired Terra Hug to apply the herbicide mix.
A few days after the spraying, the asparagus fields turned white, yellow and brown, court documents say. A representative from the region’s major asparagus buyer, Seneca, examined the fields and told the farmers the damage was from the misapplication of herbicides. The farmers, based on the representative’s recommendation, ultimately had to plow and replace the delicate asparagus with corn, a more chemically tolerant crop.
In 2004, a Canyon County jury awarded Obendorf and Gray more than $2.4 million in damages with Simplot responsible for 85 percent of that amount.
But just two days before the trial ended, General Mills — Seneca’s biggest customer of canned asparagus — signed a contract with another company that was canning asparagus in Peru. A few days after the trial ended, General Mills told Seneca it would no longer be buying Seneca’s canned asparagus. As a result, Seneca closed its asparagus processing plant in Dayton, Wash., where Obendorf and Gray would have sold their asparagus, if they had still been raising the crop.
Simplot’s attorneys promptly asked the court for a new trial, contending that the $2.4 million damage award was based on the amount that Obendorf and Gray would have lost if the herbicide had prevented them from raising asparagus into the future. The farmers were really only damaged for the amount of time that they would have been able to sell the asparagus to Seneca, Simplot argued, and so the damage award should be lower.
Justice Joel Horton, writing for the unanimous court, said the lower court judge was correct in awarding a new trial because the closure of the Seneca plant amounted to newly discovered evidence that likely would have changed the outcome of the case. Things that occur after the close of a trial generally can’t be considered as new evidence, Horton wrote, but the important new evidence in this case was General Mills’ contract with the company in Peru — which happened while the trial was under way.
