Johnson v. Paynesville Farmers Union Cooperative Oil Co.

OPINION

ROSS, Judge.

Organic farmers Oluf and Debra Johnson filed a civil suit alleging that the Paynesville Farmers Union Cooperative Oil Company sprayed a chemical pesticide that drifted from pesticide-targeted fields onto theirs, and that this prevented them from selling their crops under a federal nonpesticide “organic” certification. The district court granted summary judgment and dismissed the Johnsons’ trespass, nui-sanee, and negligence per se claims. We hold that pesticide drifting from one farm to another may in some circumstances constitute a trespass. And we hold that the federal…