GRANTS PASS, Ore.—An organic seed company and an organization opposed to genetic engineering will be allowed to defend a prohibition against biotech crops in Oregon’s Josephine County.
Circuit Court Judge Michael Newman ruled Nov. 4 that Siskiyou Seeds and Oregonians for Safe Farms and Families can intervene in a lawsuit that seeks to overturn the county’s ban on genetically modified organisms.
The seed company should not have to wait to defend the ordinance until its crops are at risk of cross-pollination from GMO varieties, Newman said at a hearing in Grants Pass, Ore.
The judge also allowed OSFF, a group that campaigned for the ordinance, to serve as Siskiyou Seeds’ co-defendant.
The company and OSFF argued that Josephine County’s government won’t defend the ban against genetically engineered crops, so they should be allowed to resist an attempt to overturn it.
The intervenors claimed that it would be prejudicial to exclude them from the lawsuit because the county doesn’t appear willing to challenge a state law that pre-empts most local governments from regulating GMOs.
“This litigation won’t be fully and fairly litigated by the existing parties,” said Stephanie Dolan, an attorney for the intervenors.
The group cited court documents filed by Josephine County, which raised no “affirmative defenses” of the ban on genetically modified organisms and did not question the legal standing of farmers who filed a case to invalidate the ordinance.
Robert and Shelley Ann White, who grew transgenic sugarbeets, filed a complaint earlier this year seeking a declaration that the ordinance was pre-empted by a state statute passed in 2013.
In its answer to the complaint, Josephine County said it “takes no position” on whether the plaintiffs are entitled to a declaration that the GMO ban is unenforceable.
Instead, the county joined the plaintiffs in a request that a judge decide whether the prohibition is valid, noting that the ordinance was passed by voters and not the county.
“We have to follow the law. What we want to know is what law: the county law or the state law,” said Wally Hicks, attorney for Josephine County.
Source: www.capitalpress.com