Hello and welcome to our final Weekly Round Up post of 2020.  I appreciate all of your support for this blog and my program and look forward to providing new and interesting content in 2021!

Photo by Robert Thiemann on Unsplash

Here are a few of the ag law stories in the past couple of weeks.

*US Supreme Court dismissed TX lawsuit against NM over Pecos River.  On Monday, I’ll have a full blog post on this case, so be sure you’re subscribed so you don’t miss it.  Essentially, TX sued NM over a dispute regarding which state should be responsible for evaporation loss from water TX asked NM to store.  In a 7-1 opinion, Justice Kavanaugh found this question was answered by the River Master’s Manual, which provides that NM should be credited for the evaporation loss.  [Read Opinion here.]

*Additional information regarding Dean Food letters to dairy farmers.  We mentioned this issue in our past Weekly Round Up, many dairy farmers who previously sold milk to Dean Foods received letters in the mail regarding repayment owed for those payments.  As we discussed, there are a number of potential defenses available under the law, and farmers receiving these letters should seek legal counsel.  Additionally, Progressive Dairy published an article providing a declaration form that farmers may be able to utilize in response to these letters.  [Read article here.]

*Damages in Bader v. Monsanto reduced by court.  A federal court judge has reduced the amount of punitive damages awarded to peach farmer, Bill Bader, in his lawsuit against Monsanto and BASF related to dicamba drift.  In February, the jury awarded Bader $15 million in compensatory damages and $250 million in punitive damages.  In November, the judge reduced this amount of $60 million to a “Constitutionally-appropriate amount.” [Read article here.]

*Article discusses “how to come home when the house is full.”  Pam Smith recently wrote a great article based on a presentation given by a farmer who left his full-time job to come home.  The article discusses a number of considerations that farm families need to think through in making strategic plans about the future.  [Read article here.]