Court agrees stray electrical currents flowed through cows, cut milk production

Jul 22 - Star Tribune (Minneapolis, MN)

The Minnesota Court of Appeals on Monday upheld a jury verdict awarding damages to a trio of Wright County dairy farmers whose cows began producing less milk because of stray electrical currents from the local power cooperative.

However, the court ruled, a new trial must be held to recalculate the value of their "milk loss," to more accurately reflect the income they lost from the health problems and decreased milk production caused by the currents when the cows were inadvertently used as a conductor for stray voltage.

In a 47-page ruling, the Appeals Court said that Harlan and Jennifer Poppler and her father, Roy Marschall were still entitled to damages from Wright Hennepin Cooperative Electric Association after a jury found that stray voltage from the company's power lines was being conducted through the hooves of the farm's cows, causing them to produce less milk and affecting their health.

The farmers calculated their "milk loss" of nearly $700,000 based on loss profits compared to earlier years. However, the court ruled that they must also calculate the decreased expenses that come with decreased income before calculating the damages. The case will be sent back to Wright County District Court.

It was late 2007 when the Popplers noticed a decrease in the 200-head herd's milk production and an increase in their health problems. Harlan Poppler recruited a veterinarian, nutritionist and others to monitor the herd, where they ruled out issues with diet, water quality, overcrowding and other issues. Harlan Poppler than began to consider stray voltage as a possible cause.

Stray voltage is a phenomenon that can affect cows when electricity, which leaves a substation, uses the path of least resistance when it returns to its complete circuit. In this case, the electricity was returning through the ground rather than a neutral line, and was conducting through the cows when they were in contact with metal devices such as stalls, feeders or milkers. In essence, the current used the cows as a pathway back to the substation.

He monitored his cows' drinking habits, and noticed they were "bobbing in and out of the water" and "licking at the water" rather than drinking it.

Wright Hennepin then performed testing on the farm and determined no stray voltage problem existed, or if it did, it was from defective electrical wiring in the Poppler's buildings rather than in the company's transmission lines. Problems continued after the Popplers rewired, and a consultant urged further improvements to the electrical system so that the currents didn't pass through the dairy farm on the way to the substation. A second electric company consultant also said the company's neutral line serving the dairy farm may be too small. After improvements by the electric company to reroute the electricity, the herd's milk production and health improved.

The Popplers sued the company, and after a March 2012 trial, the jury found Wright-Hennepin liable for negligence, trespass and nuisance, while a judge ordered the electric company to replace the power line serving the Popplers' family farm.

Wright-Hennepin appealed on multiple grounds, including that the Popplers failed to prove that the herd's exposure to electricity was enough to cause harm, and that the stray voltage was the cause of their health problems, and that they should receive a new trial because the "milk loss" calculations of $700,000 were too vague.

The Appeals Court ruled that the Popplers' evidence was sufficient for use at trial, and that "a reasonable jury could find that stray voltage caused the injury to the Popplers' dairy cows and thus, the Popplers." Along with an order for a new trial recalculating damages, the court ruled that the coop cannot be held liable for trespassing because of the stray voltage, but that the error wasn't great enough to merit an entirely new trial.

Abby Simons --612-673-4921

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