HOW YOU GONNA KEEP 'EM DOWN ON THE FARM AFTER BAUR V. BAUR FARMS, INC.?AN ANALYSIS AND DEFENSE OF THE 'REASONABLE EXPECTATIONS' STANDARD FOR IOWA OPPRESSION CASES

摘要

The fictional farm corporation plan chronicled in Jane Smiley's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, A Thousand Acres, ended badly. The family patriarch, Larry Cook, regretted ceding control of his Iowa farm to younger generations and lost his sanity. Dark secrets, sibling rivalries, and financial over-extensions exacerbated by the 1980s farm crisis tore Cook's family apart, destroying lives and a century-old farm enterprise in the process. By comparison, the farm corporation plan that led to the Iowa Supreme Court's recent decision in Baur v. Baur Farms, Inc. did not produce a Shakespearean tragedy. But the case nonetheless offers important and timely lessons for family farm entities and for other closely-held businesses in Iowa.