North Dakota must pay $175,000 in attorney fees in federal lawsuit over farming law

BISMARCK — A federal judge has ordered the North Dakota attorney general’s office to pay $175,000 in attorney fees to a farm group that sued over the state’s Depression-era anti-corporate farming law.

U.S. District Judge Daniel Hovland also criticized the state’s “attempt to recast” his September 2018 ruling.

Hovland a year ago upheld the law that state voters approved in 1932 to protect the state’s family farming heritage by barring corporations from owning or operating farms. However, he said a change made by state lawmakers in 1981 to allow exceptions for small “domestic” family farm corporations — primarily as a tax- and estate-planning tool — violates the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution if it is applied only to in-state operations. He ordered North Dakota to extend the exception beyond state borders.

The North Dakota Farm Bureau sued in 2016 to try to do away with the law. The group maintained that even though Hovland didn’t do that, his ruling removed the state’s ability to discriminate against nonresident families who want to farm in North Dakota.

Read more: https://www.inforum.com/news/crime-and-courts/4683889-North-Dakota-must-pay-175000-in-attorney-fees-in-federal-lawsuit-over-farming-law