EA - Civil Litigation for Farmed Animals - Notes From EAGxBerkeley Talk by Noa Weiss

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Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Civil Litigation for Farmed Animals - Notes From EAGxBerkeley Talk, published by Noa Weiss on September 14, 2024 on The Effective Altruism Forum.
Overview
These are my notes of the "Civil Litigation for Farmed Animals" from EAGxBerkeley, given by Alene Anello, president of Legal Impact for Chickens (LIC).
It was an excellent talk, exploring a front of the animal welfare movement that, in my opinion, has the potential to be extremely effective, and is very much neglected. (Would love to hear if you agree/disagree on this).
LIC also is currently hiring lawyers, so if you know someone who might be interested, let them know. This is a rare opportunity for folks with legal training to get professionally involved in the movement (those paid positions are hard to come by).
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Talk Notes
Intro
Premise: improving conditions on factory farms will go a long way towards helping chickens suffering
The law prohibits animal cruelty (in theory)
(Gave an excerpt from the California Penal Code)
Yet undercover investigations in farms expose such cruelty on a regular basis
Footnote on criminal laws: there are some states that have exemptions for animal agriculture
But not in California
Even states that have exemptions - it's not for *every* kind of abuse. There's a lot of stuff that happens in the farms that isn't technically exempted
But police and prosecutors don't really enforce it
And even when they do - it's against individual workers and not the company/CEOs
Why? Not sure. Perhaps because it's easier to go after someone with less power.
Attorney generals are almost always politicians (elected / politically appointed), which means they have an interest in keeping powerful companies happy
Some reasons for not enforcing at all:
A reason they often officially give: those are misdemeanors, and they're more interested in pursuing felonies (also for funding reasons)
Possibly: corruption
Possibly: "soft corruption" like not wanting to make powerful people angry
Resources and priorities
LIC's Solution: "Creative" Civil Litigation
Not how civil litigation is usually works
Animal cruelty is a crime, would more "naturally" be handled by the criminal system - but since the criminal system doesn't do anything, LIC looks for ways to bring it to civil litigations
LIC sues companies and executives
Example Cases
Example 1: Costco
Costco is not only a store but also breeds, raises and slaughters chickens (and sells the meat)
Bred them so fast that they could not even stand, eat, drink. Starved to death
That's against the law - you're required to feed your animals
There are some fiduciary duties - which are on the executives, personally, towards the company
One of them: "don't break the law"
If the executives haven't fulfilled the duties - the company can sue them
Which wouldn't usually happen because the execs control the company
But! The company also has owners. In the case of a publicly traded company - share holders
So LIC found Costco shareholders to work with
(Q: do you have to find existing share holders or can you just buy shares and then sue? A: Alene doesn't know, there isn't really a precedent).
Result:
The good news: the judge did say that the company has a responsibility re animal cruelty. Which means LIC can bring more cases like that!
The bad new: had a different interpretation to the law re what happened at Costco, so dismissed the case
Example 2: "Case Farms" - KFC supplier
Treated chicks as "dispensible". Let machine drive over them etc. Pretty harrowing.
Happened in North California. Has a law against animal cruelty, with an exemption for food/poultry.
That was what CF's defense was based on. That thereby anything they do is exempt.
LIC disagrees. If you kill the chicks they're not really used for food.
This was dismissed and LIC appealed. Currently in the NC court ...