The plaintiff was a dairy farmer with a history of allegations against him by local residents and officials from the Maine Department of Agriculture (MDOA) that he engaged in poor animal waste management at his farm in Maine. His farm, which was home to as many as 500 cows, stored manure in a pit located approximately 300 feet from a stream that was classified as a “Class A” waterway. Although officials apparently criticized the plaintiff’s practices for a number of years, they took no enforcement action against him until 2006, a time that corresponded roughly to the time that the defendant became the Commissioner of Agriculture. The defendant and the plaintiff had previously entered into a business deal involving government programs that ended very badly. The plaintiff had filed an appeal with the USDA because of his interactions with the defendant. Although the defendant recused himself from actions involving the plaintiff, the plaintiff alleged that the MDOA suddenly dropped its long-time opposition to Department of Environmental Protection’s enforcement action against him when the defendant became the commissioner. The plaintiff also asserted that the MDOA revoked his professional livestock operations permit and denied him a variance from Maine’s winter ban on manure spreading during that same time. At the end of 2006, the EPA issued an administrative order against plaintiff’s farm for violating the Clean Water Act. The plaintiff filed an action against the defendant alleging that he was retaliating against the plaintiff for constitutionally-protected speech stemming from the plaintiff’s USDA appeal. The district court granted summary judgment for the defendant, finding that the MDOA would have taken the same enforcement actions against the plaintiff, even in the absence of the plaintiff’s USDA appeal. Given the poor conditions documented in the record, including liquid manure draining into the stream and a leaking manure pit, no reasonable jury could have found that the DOA would have acted differently absent the personal conflict between the plaintiff and the defendant. McCue v. Bradstreet, No. 1:12-cv-00204-JDL, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 103632 (D. Me. Jul. 30, 2014).