Miller v. Cudahy Co.

Cecil Miller and other rice farmers (plaintiffs) sued the Cudahy Company (defendant) and its parent General Host Corporation (defendant), alleging their salt-mining operations had polluted an aquifer under the farmers' land, preventing irrigation. Evidence showed the injury could be remedied and its cause abated if the defendants stopped or altered their mining operations, and the district court found the pollution a continuing, abatable nuisance, awarding actual and punitive damages measured by loss of use of the land. The defendants appealed, arguing the damage was actually permanent (triggering Kansas's shorter two-year statute of limitations) and that a temporary-damages award should be capped at what permanent damages would have been.