St. Croix verdict orders NSP to pay nearly $4 million on farm stray voltage case

By Judy Wiff

After hearing testimony for more than three weeks and deliberating four hours, a St. Croix County jury last week awarded a Deer Park dairy farm what may be the largest stray voltage judgment in Wisconsin history.

The total judgment is about $3.9 million, said River Falls lawyer Barry Hammarback Friday.

The jury ordered Northern States Power Company to pay Schachtner Farms $850,000 for economic damages and $200,000 "for the inconvenience, annoyance and loss of use and enjoyment of their property."

Because the jury also found that NSP had failed to provide adequate service and was "willful, wanton or reckless" in its failure to provide adequate service to the farm, damages will be tripled, said Hammarback, who represented the Schachtners in the case that was filed in 1997. Hammarback said his clients offered to settle for $1 million two years ago. Because NSP rejected that offer, it will also be charged 12% interest on the verdict amount, said Hammarback.

The trial ended Nov. 23.

"We're obviously very disappointed and surprised, quite frankly, by the verdict," said Terry Thom, Milwaukee, the attorney who represented NSP in the case.

He said a Public Service Commission representative testified that NSP did provide adequate service. Thom said testing by NSP workers and others indicated that stray voltage wasn't a problem on the Schachtner farm.

NSP has until mid-December to file motions asking the judge to alter the jury verdict. Although a decision won't be made until the judge rules on those motions, NSP will probably appeal the jury decision, said Thom.

Schachtner Farms is a partnership involving John A. and Terese M. Schachtner and Richard H. and Elaine M. Schachtner.

Hammarback said John and Richard went into partnership in 1974. They have a 90-cow farm with a free-stall barn and milk parlor.

Over the years, the Schachtners realized they weren't getting the amount of production out of their cows that they should have gotten, said Hammarback. They improved feed and housing, but that didn't help.

In 1980 NSP was notified of stray voltage problems in the area and installed an isolation transformer on a nearby farm, said Hammarback.

In 1988 a farmer less than a mile away from the Schachtners reported a stray voltage problem, and NSP installed an isolator on his farm, said Hammarback.

By this time, NSP should have realized that other area farms might be having trouble with utility lines, said Hammarback. "Even though it was their policy to do so, they never checked the neighboring farms."

"The Schachtners just struggled along for a few more years," he said.

Both NSP workers and outside consultants evaluated the farm.

"They (NSP representatives) just told them it was fine, and there wasn't a problem," said Hammarback. He said NSP discounted problems identified by outside consultants.

The Schachtners installed an isolation transformer on their own.

"Within a year after that was put in, their production was up 3,000 pounds (of milk) per cow," said Hammarback.

"I don't know of any judgment that would be bigger than this in the state of Wisconsin," said Hammarback, who specializes in cases involving electricity, dairy cattle and other farm animals.

Hammarback said he has concluded 106 agriculture-related cases in the last 10-12 years and has tried cased in 11 states.

"It (stray voltage) has a devastating physical effect on dairy cows," said Hammarback.

He explained that electricity has to make a circuit to do its work. Therefore fuse boxes have two wires, one to bring in electricity and another to return it. The return wire is hooked to a ground wire, which sends some electricity into the earth.

When things are working right, nearly all of the electricity will return to the line rather than going into the ground.

The lines to the Schachtner property were installed in 1944 and were carrying 150 to 200 times as much electricity as they had been designed to carry, said Hammarback.

He said that if too much electricity is reaching the ground, the current could be enough to give a shock. Cows who are drinking water from a trough and standing "with bare feet" on a damp concrete floor can actually get a shock in their tongues when they try to drink, said Hammarback.

The pain will deter the cattle from drinking water, affect their food intake and generally change their behavior and health, said Hammarback.