Davis v. Taylor

¶1 — State and county right-to-farm laws insulate farmers from liability for nuisances that preexist residential development. Here, after a neighboring residential development had been well established, the defendant *518farmers changed their orchard from an apple orchard to a cherry orchard and then started using loud guns to scare away birds. The trial judge concluded that Yakima County’s version of the right-to-farm law accommodated this new noisy activity because the farm preexisted the residential development. We conclude that it is the farming practice or activity that controls, not the…