The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund
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 Chambersburg, Pennsylvania 17201
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Judge Upholds Anti-Corporate Farming Law in Fulton County
 Against Preliminary Challenge Filed by Agribusiness
 
CONTACT: Dan Brannen, Esq.
 814-364-2292
 
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
 Chambersburg (11/2) - Judge John Walker, the President Judge of the Franklin/Fulton County Court of Common Pleas, 39th Judicial District, recently issued a ruling that upholds a Township's authority to prohibit corporate involvement in farming; in response to a preliminary legal challenge filed by agribusiness interests. Similar local Ordinances that prohibit the creation of corporate factory farms have been adopted by a dozen Township governments in five different Counties across Pennsylvania.
 
President Judge Walker issued his opinion in the case known as Leese v. Belfast Township, Civ. No. 304-2001-C (2001), in which agribusiness interests filed a lawsuit against the Belfast Township Board of Supervisors in Fulton County, Pennsylvania, seeking to overturn several Ordinances adopted by the Supervisors. As part of their challenge, the agribusiness plaintiffs filed a summary judgment motion, asking the Court to rule that the "anti-corporate farming" law and other Ordinances were "void as a matter of law."
 
In support of that request, the agribusiness plaintiffs argued that the Township government lacked the legal authority to adopt the Ordinances, that the State Corporations Code preempted the Ordinances, and that the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution, and provisions in the Pennsylvania Constitution, prohibited the Township from adopting the Ordinances.
 
The County Court of Common Pleas rejected each of those arguments, denying the plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment, and declaring that the "plaintiffs have failed to prove that they are entitled to judgment as a matter of law."
 
As noted by the Court, "during the mid-1990's, people living in and around Belfast Township became concerned" about the economic, cultural, and environmental harms that could be caused by corporate factory farms. Close to half of all of the Township governments in Fulton County responded to those concerns by adopting local Ordinances that ban corporate involvement in farming.
 
As a result of those Ordinances, agribusiness corporations in Pennsylvania used the Courts and the State legislature in attempts to nullify them. The judicial response focused on the Belfast Township case, and the legislative response focused on House Bill 1646, known as the "ACRE" legislation, which now authorizes the State Attorney General to sue Township governments who have "exceeded their authority" under the law by attempting to control corporate farming within their jurisdiction.
 
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