Shore v. Maple Lane Farms, LLC

Certain amplified music concerts were conduct on farm land in a rural county. The county board of zoning appeals later ordered the business owners who hosted the concerts to limit the concerts to one per year, but the business owners defied the order. Plaintiff, a neighborhood property owner, filed suit seeking to enforce the zoning authority’s decision and to abate the concerts as a common-law nuisance. The trial court granted Defendants’ motion to dismiss, concluding (1) the concerts were exempted from local land use regulations because they qualified as “agriculture”; and (2) the Tennessee Right to Farm Act (Act) precluded nuisance liability. The Supreme Court reversed, holding (1) the concerts were not “agriculture” for the purpose of the zoning laws; and (2) the Act did not apply to the music concerts, and Plaintiff presented a prima facie case of common-law nuisance. Remanded.

Shore v. Maple Lane Farms, LLC