Nuisance farming suit goes up to Illinois Supreme Court

Apologies for the break in blogging... my old office laptop crashed about a week and a half ago. Thankfully, everything was backed up (I'd also been using that for the new Animal History Museum) but it's still been painful getting back up to speed.

Anywho... just saw this morning in the ISBA Digest e-clips that the state supreme court granted a petition for leave to appeal in this matter yesterday:

Toftoy v. Rosenwinkel, No. 113569, 2nd Dist.
This case presents question as to whether Farm Nuisance Act (Act) provides defendants-cattle farmers with immunity from plaintiffs' lawsuit alleging that defendant's cattle farm was nuisance due to excessive flies that emanated from said farm. Appellate Court found that although defendants had commenced farming operations prior to plaintiffs moving into vacant home, immunity conferred under Act did not apply since at time defendants had purchased their property individuals were living in nearby home on land eventually deeded to plaintiffs, and fact that plaintiffs subsequently demolished said home and built new home on same location did not cause defendant's cattle operation to become nuisance so as to trigger immunity provisions of said Act. (Dissent filed.)

Is Rick Santorum a Closet Animal Rights Activist?

Thought you might also find this recent Forbes article interesting...

Anti-animal law...

On Friday, Iowa became the first state in the country to enact a law criminalizing activists who go undercover to report animal abuse. For some reason, most of the coverage on this new law was today. Read more in the Los Angeles Times or the Chicago Tribune.

Meanwhile, as the Sioux City Journal reports, activists remain undeterred...