111 Iowa L. Rev. Online 102 (2026)
Abstract
This Essay examines almost forty years of interaction between the Iowa General Assembly and the Iowa Supreme Court regarding the constitutional application of Iowa’s Freedom to Farm laws to large-scale agricultural activities conducted by concentrated animal feeding operations (“CAFOs”) sued for causing nuisance harms to their neighbors. Prior to Iowa’s enactment of its so-called “Freedom to Farm” laws, aggrieved neighbors of these CAFOs successfully sued them as private nuisances for failing to properly dispose of animal wastes produced by hogs or poultry raised in tightly confined indoor facilities. The neighbors prevailed in these nuisance suits because Iowa courts regularly found that the offensive odors and other unwanted annoyances escaping from the CAFOs unreasonably interfered with the neighbors’ comfortable use and enjoyment of their lives and property.
This Essay examines three versions of Iowa’s Freedom to Farm laws adopted between 1979 and 2017, along with five key cases in which these laws were challenged as unconstitutional before the Iowa Supreme Court. The claims of unconstitutionality were based on both the Takings Clause in section 18 of the Iowa Constitution’s Bill of Rights and the explicit special protection afforded property rights by the Inalienable Rights Clause in section 1 of the Iowa Bill of Rights.
This Essay gives primary attention to Garrison v. New Fashion Pork LLP, a 4-3 decision in 2022 that controversially overruled a key 2004 farm nuisance case, Gacke v. Pork Xtra, L.L.C. The Gacke case unanimously held unconstitutional Iowa Code section 657.11(2), a 1995 amendment to Iowa’s statutory nuisance law that granted immunity from nuisance liability to agricultural operations producing farm animals or animal products for market. The Gacke decision ruled this statute’s grant of nuisance immunity to CAFO operators was unconstitutional as both an uncompensated taking and as a violation of Iowa’s Inalienable Rights Clause. After Gacke, Iowa courts appeared to convert the complicated “unduly oppressive” review applied in that case to a simple three-part factual test. Overturned specifically in the Garrison case was the Gacke holding that courts considering constitutional challenges to state actions based on section 1 of the Iowa Bill of Rights should apply a higher standard of judicial review than a highly deferential rational basis review. The court also overturned the ruling in Gacke that the Iowa Freedom to Farm law severely limiting an Iowa landowner’s right to sue an offending CAFO for nuisance damages was unconstitutional under the Inalienable Rights Clause of the Iowa Bill of Rights. The majority in Garrison refused to accord the Gacke decision stare decisis, on the grounds that it applied an incorrect judicial review standard and was wrongly decided on the merits because the result was contrary to Iowa precedents and inconsistent with other state courts’ treatment of their Freedom to Farm laws.
After short descriptions of the three Iowa Freedom to Farm statutes and the five cases in which they were challenged before the Iowa Supreme Court, this Essay focuses on three main legal issues raised by this series of farm nuisance cases: (1) The scope of the Iowa Constitution’s Takings Clause—Is it restricted to protecting only against losses in land value?; (2) The constitutional force of the “property rights” language in the Iowa Constitution’s Inalienable Rights Clause—Is judicial enforcement ever available?; and (3) Why wasn’t Iowa Code section 657.11A(3), on the books since 2017, invoked by Iowa courts as authorization to award winning plaintiffs all the conventional compensatory damages justified by the facts of a nuisance verdict against an Iowa CAFO?
Several reasons are advanced to question whether in Garrison the Iowa Supreme Court departed from its customary mode of constitutional analysis in dealing with the legislature’s repeated attempts to create special protections for Iowa CAFOs to avoid responsibility for lawsuits by their neighbors claiming nuisance injuries. With regard to the force of the Iowa Inalienable Rights Clause, this Essay questions the reasons for the court’s refusal in the recent Garrison case to apply stare decisis to Gacke and two other cases judicially entertaining rights based on this section of the Iowa Bill of Rights. Also questioned is the court’s unwillingness to even consider the possible relevance of a recent Iowa statute regulating awards of economic and non-economic damages to plaintiffs suing Iowa CAFOs for nuisances.
This Essay concludes by offering a brief analysis of how the recent Garrison decision altered Iowa constitutional law and nuisance law as they pertain to Iowa CAFOs and how the decision may possibly lead to additional changes in Iowa property law. In making this final assessment, the Essay addresses three simple questions: (1) What did Garrison decide?; (2) What did Garrison not decide?; and (3) What does the Garrison decision portend for the impact of Iowa Freedom to Farm laws on neighbor’s future nuisance actions against CAFOs claimed to be unreasonably interfering with the comfortable use and enjoyment of their lives and property?