Thanks for writing this. I feel like the following is the crux of your criticism of LIC:
ACE acknowledges the lawsuit was dismissed, but still celebrates this achievement. They note that this achievement would inspire similar lawsuits. Would it be good to inspire more lawsuits that cost $200,000 and are dismissed?
You state this as though the answer is âobviously noâ but the answer feels extremely nonobvious to me. I note that you excluded the some key things when quoting ACE:
LICâs first lawsuit, a shareholder derivative case against Costcoâs executives for chicken neglect, was featured on TikTok and in multiple media outlets, including CNN Business, Fox Business, The Washington Post, and Meatingplace⌠We thought the achievement has strong potential for indirect impact, and it received a high amount of media attention. - ACE
The Facebook fan page still as of this writing has a post about the lawsuit pinned to the top because apparently the owner decided to boycott after learning about the cruelty.
It sounds like the Costco board also had to take official action:
In a letter dated August 15, 2023, Costcoâs board stated that it had âformed a Board committee to review and investigate the demandâs allegations.â LICâs shareholder clients then met with investigators retained by the committee. - LIC
Is it worth $200k to get a bunch of bad publicity for Costco, force the board to form a committee and hire an investigator, etc.?
I donât know, Iâm pretty willing to believe that the answer is ânoâ, but it doesnât seem obvious to me. I could pretty easily believe that the CEO of the next company they sue would to change their policies instead of having to deal with the embarrassment of asking the board to form a committee to investigate.
I will address your points, but first I would like to clarify what we believe the crux of the problem is with LIC being deemed a top 11 animal charity by ACE.
In Problem 1 of our review, we state the following:
We go on how to detail how if LIC had spent less than $2,000 on the lawsuit (saving over $200,000) and achieved the exact same outcome, ACE would have assigned LIC a Cost-Effectiveness Score of 1.8. The lowest Cost-Effectiveness Score ACE assigned to any charity in 2023 was 3.3. This means if LIC had spent less than $2,000 on the lawsuit, LICâs Cost-Effectiveness Score would have been significantly worse than any charity ACE evaluated in 2023.
Instead, LIC spent over $200,000 on the lawsuit, and LIC rewarded them for this inefficiency by giving them a Cost-Effectiveness Score of 3.7, and deeming LIC a top 11 animal charity.
This is the crux of the problem, and it is really an issue with ACE deeming LIC a top 11 animal charity, not with LIC itself. ACE elected to give LIC this distinction, and LIC merely accepted it.
I would also like to note encouraging or valuing lawsuits that fail to state valid legal claims (but burden defendants/âgarner publicity) risks causing the legal system to take animal rights/âwelfare cases less seriously. If courts observe a pattern of weak or legally insufficient cases being filed for publicity/âto burden the defendant, they will become skeptical of all animal rights/âwelfare lawsuitsâeven those with strong legal merit. Prior to being deemed a top 11 animal charity by ACE, every single lawsuit filed by LIC failed to state a valid legal claim.
I note that you excluded the some key things when quoting ACE: LICâs first lawsuit, a shareholder derivative case against Costcoâs executives for chicken neglect, was featured on TikTok and in multiple media outlets, including CNN Business, Fox Business, The Washington Post, and Meatingplace⌠We thought the achievement has strong potential for indirect impact, and it received a high amount of media attention. - ACE
ACEâs review of LIC contains a section titled âOur Assessment of Legal Impact for Chickensâ Cost Effectivenessâ, and the quote you have provided is not part of this section. Our entire review of ACE is about ACE incorrectly calculating cost-effectiveness; consequently, this is the section we decided to focus on. ACEâs review of LIC is over 5,000 words, and we cannot include every quote from ACEâs review of LIC.
Additionally, the quote youâve provided gives no metrics to gauge how much media attention was received. If media attention is a strong justification for stating a $200,000 lawsuit that failed to state a valid legal claim is âparticularly cost-effectiveâ (as ACE put it), ACE should provide metrics regarding how much media attention was received. Ironically, the Facebook post you mentioned appears to have more metrics than ACEâs review of LIC regarding amount of media attention caused by the Costco lawsuit, since the Facebook post lists the numbers of likes and comments the post received.
The Facebook fan page still as of this writing has a post about the lawsuit pinned to the top because apparently the owner decided to boycott after learning about the cruelty.
The Facebook post you referred to received 56 likes and 83 comments. To my understanding, the post is also not pinned to the top, it is simply the last post the Facebook page has made (it appears that the page has not posted in over 2 years). I do not think this is very strong evidence that LICâs $200,000 lawsuit that was dismissed for failing to state a valid legal claim was âparticularly cost-effectiveâ (as ACE put it).
It sounds like the Costco board also had to take official action
Correct, the Costco board took official action by rejecting LICâs demands.
Is it worth $200k to get a bunch of bad publicity for Costco [...]?
Could you please define what âa bunch of bad publicity for Costcoâ means? And could you provide evidence that this level of publicity was caused by LICâs lawsuit?
Is it worth $200k to [...]force the board to form a committee and hire an investigator, etc.?
Costcoâs board formed a committee to review and investigate LICâs demands. The committee then recommended that the board reject the demand, which they did. This does not appear to be a very good outcome.
Is it worth $200k to get a bunch of bad publicity for Costco, force the board to form a committee and hire an investigator, etc.?
I donât know, Iâm pretty willing to believe that the answer is ânoâ, but it doesnât seem obvious to me. I could pretty easily believe that the CEO of the next company they sue would to change their policies instead of having to deal with the embarrassment of asking the board to form a committee to investigate.
It is ACEâs job to write charity reviews that provide the empirics necessary to answer questions like the one youâve asked. From your own statement, it seems like ACE has failed to do this. ACE did not provide metrics on how much media attention the Costco lawsuit caused, and did not provide any insight into how much of a burden it was to form a committee to review and investigate LICâs demands (I donât recall ACEâs review even mentioning this).
Yes, thank you, I understand that weighting by budget results in the phenomenon you described. I didnât comment on this since it sounds like ACE is planning to change it anyway.
I was referring to the publicity listed in ACEâs review. The stories appear to be about the lawsuit so I am not entirely sure what you mean by âcould you provide evidence that this level of publicity was caused by LICâs lawsuitâ. See e.g. CNN, Fox.
To clarify: I donât care about causing burdens to Costco per se. The reason that burdens are relevant is because future companies might prefer to avoid that burden and instead change their policies. I agree it would be good to have a better model of when this would happen and would be excited for someone to make such a model!
Thanks for writing this. I feel like the following is the crux of your criticism of LIC:
You state this as though the answer is âobviously noâ but the answer feels extremely nonobvious to me. I note that you excluded the some key things when quoting ACE:
The Facebook fan page still as of this writing has a post about the lawsuit pinned to the top because apparently the owner decided to boycott after learning about the cruelty.
It sounds like the Costco board also had to take official action:
Is it worth $200k to get a bunch of bad publicity for Costco, force the board to form a committee and hire an investigator, etc.?
I donât know, Iâm pretty willing to believe that the answer is ânoâ, but it doesnât seem obvious to me. I could pretty easily believe that the CEO of the next company they sue would to change their policies instead of having to deal with the embarrassment of asking the board to form a committee to investigate.
Hi Ben,
Thank you for your response!
I will address your points, but first I would like to clarify what we believe the crux of the problem is with LIC being deemed a top 11 animal charity by ACE.
In Problem 1 of our review, we state the following:
We go on how to detail how if LIC had spent less than $2,000 on the lawsuit (saving over $200,000) and achieved the exact same outcome, ACE would have assigned LIC a Cost-Effectiveness Score of 1.8. The lowest Cost-Effectiveness Score ACE assigned to any charity in 2023 was 3.3. This means if LIC had spent less than $2,000 on the lawsuit, LICâs Cost-Effectiveness Score would have been significantly worse than any charity ACE evaluated in 2023.
Instead, LIC spent over $200,000 on the lawsuit, and LIC rewarded them for this inefficiency by giving them a Cost-Effectiveness Score of 3.7, and deeming LIC a top 11 animal charity.
This is the crux of the problem, and it is really an issue with ACE deeming LIC a top 11 animal charity, not with LIC itself. ACE elected to give LIC this distinction, and LIC merely accepted it.
I would also like to note encouraging or valuing lawsuits that fail to state valid legal claims (but burden defendants/âgarner publicity) risks causing the legal system to take animal rights/âwelfare cases less seriously. If courts observe a pattern of weak or legally insufficient cases being filed for publicity/âto burden the defendant, they will become skeptical of all animal rights/âwelfare lawsuitsâeven those with strong legal merit. Prior to being deemed a top 11 animal charity by ACE, every single lawsuit filed by LIC failed to state a valid legal claim.
ACEâs review of LIC contains a section titled âOur Assessment of Legal Impact for Chickensâ Cost Effectivenessâ, and the quote you have provided is not part of this section. Our entire review of ACE is about ACE incorrectly calculating cost-effectiveness; consequently, this is the section we decided to focus on. ACEâs review of LIC is over 5,000 words, and we cannot include every quote from ACEâs review of LIC.
Additionally, the quote youâve provided gives no metrics to gauge how much media attention was received. If media attention is a strong justification for stating a $200,000 lawsuit that failed to state a valid legal claim is âparticularly cost-effectiveâ (as ACE put it), ACE should provide metrics regarding how much media attention was received. Ironically, the Facebook post you mentioned appears to have more metrics than ACEâs review of LIC regarding amount of media attention caused by the Costco lawsuit, since the Facebook post lists the numbers of likes and comments the post received.
The Facebook post you referred to received 56 likes and 83 comments. To my understanding, the post is also not pinned to the top, it is simply the last post the Facebook page has made (it appears that the page has not posted in over 2 years). I do not think this is very strong evidence that LICâs $200,000 lawsuit that was dismissed for failing to state a valid legal claim was âparticularly cost-effectiveâ (as ACE put it).
Correct, the Costco board took official action by rejecting LICâs demands.
Could you please define what âa bunch of bad publicity for Costcoâ means? And could you provide evidence that this level of publicity was caused by LICâs lawsuit?
Costcoâs board formed a committee to review and investigate LICâs demands. The committee then recommended that the board reject the demand, which they did. This does not appear to be a very good outcome.
It is ACEâs job to write charity reviews that provide the empirics necessary to answer questions like the one youâve asked. From your own statement, it seems like ACE has failed to do this. ACE did not provide metrics on how much media attention the Costco lawsuit caused, and did not provide any insight into how much of a burden it was to form a committee to review and investigate LICâs demands (I donât recall ACEâs review even mentioning this).
Yes, thank you, I understand that weighting by budget results in the phenomenon you described. I didnât comment on this since it sounds like ACE is planning to change it anyway.
I was referring to the publicity listed in ACEâs review. The stories appear to be about the lawsuit so I am not entirely sure what you mean by âcould you provide evidence that this level of publicity was caused by LICâs lawsuitâ. See e.g. CNN, Fox.
To clarify: I donât care about causing burdens to Costco per se. The reason that burdens are relevant is because future companies might prefer to avoid that burden and instead change their policies. I agree it would be good to have a better model of when this would happen and would be excited for someone to make such a model!