Can a farm tenant, who is terminated on the lease, sue for damages against the land owner for not being able to make corn stalk bales before fall tillage starts for the operator? Under Iowa Law, as of 1 July 2010 ,unless the parties agree otherwise, the tenant has the right to the property until the lease expires. In a recently decided case, the terminated tenant sued successfully for trespass damages where he had established that prior to the trespass of fall tillage, he was going to make corn stalk bales, even though the lease was enacted before the law change. Because the lease renewed automatically on 1 September 2010, after the law change in 2010, the change in the law was applied to the contract.
The kicker on this is that the tenant only had the lease with the change in the law because he hadn’t been properly terminated on 1 September 2010.The take away from this case is clear, following ag law and its rules is not a task to be tended to right before catching the opening monologue of Jimmy Fallon. The rules are complex, the courts will treat your operation like a business.
