Legislation moving through the North Carolina General Assembly would prevent people living near the state's numerous factory farms from recovering more than token damages in civil lawsuits where the farm's corporate owner is found responsible for harming them.

The proposal comes with such litigation already underway. In 2013, more than 500 residents of eastern North Carolina took legal action against Murphy-Brown LLC, the hog-growing subsidiary of Virginia-based Smithfield Foods, which is owned by Shuanghui Group of China, the world's fourth-largest pork producer. Under contracts with local growers, Murphy-Brown owns the hogs at about two-thirds of farms in North Carolina, the second-biggest hog-producing state after Iowa.

North Carolina allows hog farms to store animal waste in massive open-air lagoons before spraying it on open fields, a practice that leads to water pollution. Murphy-Brown is embroiled in separate ongoing litigation with the Waterkeeper Alliance over its alleged failure to comply with a 2006 agreement to clean up groundwater contamination at 11 of its hog operations in the state. The lawsuits filed by the neighbors detail many other problems associated with the farms, including sickening stenches, swarming flies, chronic illnesses and piles of animal carcasses left in roadside "dead boxes."

Despite the serious claims of harm documented by the plaintiffs, House Bill 467 and a companion measure, Senate Bill 460, would limit compensatory damages in such so-called "nuisance" lawsuits. In the case of permanent nuisances, the legislation would limit damages to "the reduction in the fair market value of the plaintiff's property caused by the nuisance, but not to exceed the fair market value of the property." In the case of temporary nuisances, it would limit damages to "the diminution of the fair rental value of the plaintiff's property caused by the nuisance."

Environmental advocates blasted the legislation, with N.C. League of Conservation Voters (NCLCV) lobbyist Dan Crawford describing it as "nothing more than lawmakers putting a foreign-owned company ahead of the long-term health and safety of the very communities who have been forced to endure the harms of hog waste for decades."