Cruelty --> Liability: Legal Impact for Chickens’s room for funding & marginal impact
Thanks to the generous EA community, it looks like Legal Impact for Chickens (LIC), has a real chance to make cruelty a liability.
Sometimes it can feel like the burden rests entirely on activists to beg Big Ag companies to give animals mercy. But an animal’s owner is the one with the obligation to care for the animal. Animal cruelty and neglect are crimes.
So LIC aims for a world where Big Ag companies themselves will proactively ensure their treatment of animals complies with the law. Company executives and general counsels should make sure the company’s animals have proper food and clean water. Companies should refrain from animal torture on their own, simply because the law says so.
Below I give you a background on who we are, describe our most recent work, discuss an objection to LIC’s work, and lay out how we’d use marginal funding.
I. LIC works to make cruelty a liability.
As many EA Forum readers already know, the EA-minded litigation nonprofit, LIC, works to make factory-farm cruelty a liability. LIC brings strategic lawsuits for chickens and other farmed animals. We develop and refine creative methods to civilly enforce existing cruelty laws in factory farms, and to sue companies that break animal-welfare commitments.
Companies don’t follow laws if they aren’t enforced. But prosecutors rarely enforce cruelty laws on factory farms. As a result, factory farms commit rampant, unlawful neglect and abuse. Strategic civil litigation offers a solution. Several little-known laws—like the fiduciary duty to act lawfully—let plaintiffs sue for violation of another law.
LIC picks cases pragmatically, based on factors including likelihood of a win, the number of animals we could directly help with a win, the extent of those animals’ suffering, and precedent potential.
Our first lawsuit, the shareholder derivative case against Costco’s executives for chicken neglect, made it into The Washington Post, Fox Business, CNN Business, Meatingplace, and a viral TikTok. As you’ll read below, we’re currently litigating three other cases and recently sponsored an undercover investigation.
I founded LIC in 2021. Before that, I graduated from Harvard Law School and Harvard College, clerked for a federal judge, and sued animal abusers at the Animal Legal Defense Fund. I’ve also worked to protect animals at PETA and the Good Food Institute.
Thanks to EAs’ generosity, LIC has now grown to a team of four full-time employees! I am so lucky to work with Kathryn Evans, a litigator with a degree from NYU Law and experience suing factory farms and other companies; @Sage Max, a legal operations specialist who previously helped build a law firm’s EA animal litigation program with Jay Shooster; and Isabella Nilsson, an Equal Justice Works fellow and Harvard Law grad. Now, LIC is in the process of hiring another attorney.
II. LIC’s most recent work:
LIC has several recent updates!
Farming groups and veterinarians submitted amicus briefs supporting LIC’s position in LIC v. Case Farms. As you may recall, we’re suing KFC-supplier Case Farms for its pattern of gross mismanagement and cruelty toward newborn chicks. Case Farms breeds and kills almost 200 million birds each year. One of the amicus briefs was submitted by the Northeast Organic Dairy Producers Alliance, Food Animal Concerns Trust, and The Cornucopia Institute, and written by former North Carolina Appellate Judge Lucy Inman. They wrote: “Defendants’ alleged conduct is not only unethical, but completely contrary to the professional standards of modern poultry farming.”
LIC commissioned an undercover investigation of Foster Farms, California’s largest chicken-meat company. The nonprofit we hired to do the investigation, Animal Outlook, caught Foster Farms driving forklifts over birds. We believe this is illegal cruelty and we’re waiting to hear back from law enforcement. The investigation has been discussed in Meatingplace, WattPoultry, Meat+Poultry, Supermarket Perimeter, The Fresno Bee, The Sacramento Bee, and the Merced Sun-Star. Foster Farms claims it will make animal-welfare improvements as a result of the investigation.
We filed LIC v Alexandre Family Farm. The well-known dairy was caught putting salt in cows’ eyes and starving them. We think this is illegal under California law. LIC itself is the plaintiff, suing under a special California humane society enforcement statute.
LIC also just filed a false-advertising lawsuit against DC butcher shop Harvey’s Market for calling foie gras “humane.” The lawsuit received coverage in Eater DC.
Please also see our 2023 Annual Report: legalimpactforchickens.org/2023-annual-report.
Thank you for making all this happen!
III. An objection to LIC’s work
From an EA perspective, one objection to LIC’s work is that LIC lost the Costco lawsuit, and our Case Farms suit is still on appeal. LIC’s theory of change is thus still largely unproven. A donor who wants a sure-fire way to reduce suffering may thus reasonably choose to support one of the other wonderful, EA-minded animal-welfare charities.
The reason I feel excited about dedicating my life to LIC, however, is because I believe we will win.
LIC only brings a case after extensive legal and factual research and analysis. We bring a case when the facts and the law support our position. We put our all into each case we litigate. We pay careful attention to the outcome of previous suits (LIC’s and others) to craft future suits.
And we bring cases where a win would go a long way toward reducing suffering. For instance, we’re currently suing Case Farms, a company responsible for the lives and deaths of about 200 million chickens a year.
In general, the U.S. food industry raises and slaughters about 10 billion land animals per year. These animals’ well-being depends on decisions made by the large companies that own them. A particularly efficient way to improve animal welfare would thus be to get all U.S. ag companies to proactively read, understand, and comply with state anti-cruelty laws on their own.
Civil litigation is the perfect tool to achieve this. When large companies know that they will be subject to civil litigation for violating a law, they tend to proactively take steps to follow the law before being sued.
IV. LIC aims to fill a ~$90,000 gap by EOY.
LIC is currently fundraising for 2025. Our ideal budget for 2025 is about $1,050,000. We estimate that would be enough for LIC to work on four lawsuits in 2025—including our ongoing Case Farms, Alexandre Family Farm, and Harvey’s Market cases, as well as a future case we’re yet to file.
LIC currently has a balance of about $1,080,000 in money raised or promised minus money spent or incurred. We estimate that we will spend about $120,000 throughout the end of 2024. Therefore, we have a gap of about $90,000 toward our 2025 budget.[1]
Filling this gap will ensure that LIC can afford to aggressively litigate four cases at once, each with the aim of making factory-farm cruelty a liability. We will be able to continue partnering with top-quality contract attorneys and expert witnesses whenever we need a unique type of expertise for a particular lawsuit. We will be able to ensure we always have the most accurate information by freely hiring skilled private investigators whenever necessary. We will be able to fight boldly without worrying about taking on more litigation than we can afford to competently pursue. (Each time an attorney takes on a new case, the attorney has an ethical obligation to pursue the case competently.)
If you’re interested in helping LIC fill our funding gap, please click here:
Donate to LICThank you for reading this post, and for everything you do to make the world better!
Sincerely,
Alene & LIC
P.S. Happy Veterans Day! 🇺🇸
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All the dollar amounts in this post are estimates created by me, Alene, a non-accountant. These numbers don’t reflect the use of Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). For LIC’s latest formal audited financials, which were created via the use of GAAP, see https://www.legalimpactforchickens.org/2023-financials.
Thanks for writing this, Alene!
Is there something you could share about why you think this? E.g. have analogous projects succeeded before, have the previous cases had judgments indicating that the case would succeed on appeal, etc.?
I guess the main reason is because the arguments we’re making are right on the law. So I feel that we are bound to eventually win.
The example that immediately comes to mind for me is how animal lawyers finally established that the Endangered Species Act (ESA) prohibits the abuse of captive endangered and threatened animals.
The ESA states that it’s illegal to kill, harm, or harass any animal whose species is threatened or endangered. So if you read the law objectively, it looks like it should prevent the abuse of captive endangered or threatened animals in a circus or a roadside zoo. But circuses and roadside zoos used to routinely beat and neglect animals like endangered Asian elephants, lemurs, tigers, etc. And they wanted to be able to continue doing so.
The ESA also says that, if someone violates the ESA, any citizen who is harmed by that violation can sue. So it makes it very easy for private citizens to protect endangered or threatened animals even when police and prosecutors are busy with other tasks.
The circus and the roadside zoos didn’t want the ESA to apply to them. And they had access to lots of money and good lawyers.
So, for years, somehow, the private wild animal ownership industry was able to continue violating the ESA without repercussion—even when animal lawyers tried to sue.
Finally, though, lawyers at the Animal Legal Defense Fund brought a landmark case called Kuehl v. Sellner. Kuehl v. Sellner successfully established that it’s illegal to abuse captive endangered and threatened animals. Now, courts seem to accept that premise without question.
The cool thing about the U.S. court system is that it’s designed to be a place where you can win if you’re right on the law—even if your opponent has more money and political power than you. It doesn’t always live up to that promise right away. But eventually, it often does.
Thanks for sharing, Alene. Do you have estimates for the marginal cost-effectiveness of LIC in terms of chicken-years improved per $? For reference, I estimate the chicken-years improved per $ for broiler welfare and cage-free campaigns are 3.00 (= 15*1/5) and 10.8 chicken-year/$ (= 54*1/5), which are the product between:
Saulius Šimčikas’ estimates of 15 and 54 chicken-year/$.
An adjustment factor of 1⁄5, since Open Philanthropy thinks “the marginal FAW [farmed animal welfare] funding opportunity is ~1/5th as cost-effective as the average from Saulius’ analysis [which is linked just above]”.
Hi Vasco Grilo! Thank you for being awesome. I’m so sorry but I don’t have anything quite like that right now.
Executive summary: Legal Impact for Chickens (LIC) aims to reduce animal suffering by using strategic civil litigation to make factory farm cruelty legally and financially risky for agricultural companies.
Key points:
LIC brings strategic lawsuits against companies for animal cruelty, targeting major agricultural firms like Case Farms, Foster Farms, and Alexandre Family Farm
The organization’s theory of change involves using civil litigation to compel companies to proactively comply with animal welfare laws
LIC is currently fundraising to close a $90,000 gap, with a goal of pursuing four lawsuits in 2025
Despite losing their initial Costco lawsuit, the organization remains confident in their legal approach and potential to reduce animal suffering
The nonprofit has grown to a team of four full-time employees and has received significant media coverage for their investigations and legal actions
Their ultimate aim is to create systemic change by making animal cruelty a financial liability for agricultural companies
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