## Facts

- Dennis and Ruth Weinhold bought rural residential property in Buena Vista County, Iowa in 1977 and built a home and improvements.
- Neighboring land was later used by Norman and Pam Wolff for a commercial hog feeding and confinement operation.
- The operation generated frequent, intense odors and emissions that allegedly caused illness and substantially interfered with the Weinholds’ use and enjoyment of their property.
- About a year after the operation began, the Wolffs obtained an “agricultural area” designation for their land under Iowa’s agricultural land preservation statutes.
- The Weinholds sued for nuisance (and initially negligence), seeking damages and injunctive relief; the case proceeded in equity solely on the nuisance claim.
- The Wolffs asserted Iowa Code § 352.11(1) as an affirmative defense against nuisance liability.

## Issues

1. Whether the hog confinement operation constituted a temporary nuisance or a permanent nuisance.
2. Whether Iowa Code § 352.11(1) barred any portion of the Weinholds’ nuisance claim, including damages accruing after agricultural-area designation.
3. Whether the statute should be construed to avoid extinguishing preexisting nuisance claims and thereby avoid constitutional “takings” concerns.
4. What remedies were available for the nuisance, including the proper measure of damages and whether injunctive relief should issue.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Iowa held the odors and related conditions constituted a permanent nuisance, not a temporary nuisance.
- The court construed Iowa Code § 352.11(1) not to cut off nuisance claims that accrued when the nuisance existed before agricultural-area designation; thus, the defense did not bar the Weinholds’ recovery for pre- or post-designation harms stemming from that preexisting nuisance.
- Applying constitutional-avoidance principles, the court avoided declaring the statute unconstitutional because the statute could reasonably be interpreted to preserve vested, preexisting claims.
- The court held permanent-nuisance damages could include both diminution in market value and personal discomfort/loss of enjoyment; it remanded for recalculation consistent with a single permanent-nuisance recovery.
- The court agreed injunctive relief was not warranted and that damages were the appropriate remedy.
- Disposition: affirmed as modified in part, reversed in part, and remanded.

## Legal Principles

- A permanent nuisance is fixed and continuing in character and not reasonably expected to cease; a temporary nuisance is intermittent and subject to abatement.
- For a permanent nuisance, the remedy is generally a single recovery covering past and reasonably anticipated future harm, which may include diminution in market value and personal discomfort/annoyance and loss of use and enjoyment.
- Iowa Code § 352.11(1)’s agricultural-area nuisance defense does not eliminate nuisance claims that accrued from a nuisance that existed before the agricultural-area designation.
- When statutory language permits multiple reasonable readings, courts prefer a construction that avoids serious constitutional doubts, including avoidance of interpretations that would extinguish vested causes of action.

## Conclusion

The court treated the hog confinement odors as a permanent nuisance and interpreted Iowa’s agricultural-area nuisance defense to preserve preexisting nuisance claims, ordering a remand to recompute a comprehensive permanent-nuisance damage award while leaving injunctive relief denied.


Weinhold v. Wolff, 555 N.W.2d 454 (Iowa 1996)