1. How did you become involved in the field of animal law?

At the moment that I entered law school, I didn’t really know animal law existed. I was vaguely aware of  the ALDF and efforts by people like Steve Wise to break the species barrier when it came to legal rights, but I didn’t know any attorneys making a living doing animal law. The only litigation on farmed animal issues I knew of was CAFO Clean Water Act litigation. I envisioned myself possibly starting out in environmental law, then working my way into factory farming issues as time went on, as it slowly became more feasible. So when I discovered a field already in existence and steadily growing, I was very impressed. And I was lucky enough to have stumbled into a school with an amazing animal law professor and a very active student animal law society. I became very involved in the animal law society, which put on a speaker series. I was able to learn what was going on in animal law through that. It was then that I realized working directly on farmed animal issues was at least a possibility.

During law school, I worked at an animal protection group and then a public interest law firm that does some animal protection law. After law school, I started working at Compassion Over Killing in Washington, D.C.

2. Describe your typical day.
It’s hard to nail down what a typical day is like—we do a variety of things.  I’m currently the only attorney on staff.  I oversee two law student interns, who are a major help though. The purpose of my position is to focus on litigation on behalf of farmed animals. A small percentage of my work also involves more typical in-house counsel tasks such as insurance, leases, etc. Most of my time, however, is dedicated to cases that generally fall into one of two categories: (1) Criminal animal cruelty (or civil provisions which mirror or allow access to the use of criminal cruelty provisions) for large-scale abuse of farm animals, or (2) false advertising with respect to claims made on labels or elsewhere about animal products (eggs have so far been our focus). I generally focus on three active cases at any given time, and several more that are in still in the development stages. We rely on a lot of help from pro bono and paid outside attorneys as well, and we collaborate with other animal protection organization on some of our projects. A typical day might involve a meeting or other correspondence with outside attorneys, several hours of work on a particular case or project – writing a complaint, researching procedure, searching for expert witnesses, and overseeing and editing intern projects on current and/or prospective cases.

3. What aspect of your job do you enjoy the most?
It’s true across the board that there’s no formula for practicing animal law. But there are certain issues that really are almost completely untapped. Laws offering any kind of protection to farmed animals against abuse are almost nonexistent. “Almost” is the key word, though. We operate in that grey area, trying to find causes of action that are accessible but offer a significant opportunity for progress. COK also conducts investigations, which makes us a rarity even among animal organizations, so that opens up a lot of territory for me to explore. Coming up with a new case idea where on first glance it looks like an impossible proposition – and then actually being able test the waters – is the best part of this job. This field could suddenly explode, or not. It could go anywhere. And that’s very exciting.

4. Can you tell us about a couple of COK’s recent investigations?
We recently wrapped up a criminal case of animal cruelty against an owner and a manager of a battery egg facility in Pennsylvania that was based on investigatory footage. The case unfortunately resulted in an acquittal, for what seem to largely be political reasons, but that’s a separate topic of discussion, which I touch on a bit more below. The impact of this investigation ands subsequent case surprised even us. It was the first time criminal charges were brought against an egg farmer and manager based on the living conditions for animals in a factory farm and the lack of care during daily operations, as opposed to egregious cruelty cases like the beating or throwing of an animal by a disgruntled employee. Moving toward penalizing abusive day-to-day activities has the potential to create real progress for farmed animals on a large scale. The investigatory footage in this case included birds left in aisles to starve to death, birds who were stuck in the wires of their cages, birds impaled through the body or through the wing by loose wires, birds impaled and hung by their beaks on exposed hooks that were part of the water delivery system, and decomposing birds left weeks left in cages with live hens. The video footage is available by following this link.

COK also conducted an investigation inside a turkey hatchery in North Carolina. As far as we are aware, this is the first time footage of this kind has ever been available. These were turkey hatchlings that were to ultimately wind up as the centerpiece of people’s dinner tables during the winter holiday season—an aspect of the investigation that clearly impacted many consumers who wrote to us after seeing the video. The footage reveals the processing system for newly hatched chicks: they are dumped onto a machine that sorts the birds from the shells, then they are moved to a conveyor belt that brings them to different stations for debeaking, detoeing, desnooding, sexing, and so on. In the process, some chicks become mangled on the machinery. Others are removed from the belts, placed inside a plastic bag, and intentionally suffocated to death. Some are not yet even fully hatched from their shells and simply treated like trash—in fact, these chicks are considered “hatch debris” in the industry. The video footage is available by following this link.

Both of these investigations were employment based.

5. What is COK’s ‘Truth in Labelling’ egg campaign?
As I mentioned above, a large portion of our legal projects are related to false advertising. In a major victory for COK, the egg industry’s claim “Animal Care Certified” was deemed misleading and removed from egg cartons. This began in 2003, when COK’s former general counsel Carter Dillard filed complaints with federal agencies as well as a consumer protection agency that eventually led to the removal of the claim and logo from cartons, which was nearly ubiquitous at the time. This program was developed by the egg industry group United Egg Producers (UEP) in part to capitalize on the growing consumer concern about animal welfare. Polls show that many consumers want to purchase products from animals they believe are treated more humanely—and are willing to pay more for those products. UEP knew that this concern for animal welfare among consumers was growing, but that people were still relatively ignorant about the process. The “Animal Care Certified” logo was their solution to capture the market of people willing to pay more for (perceived) better conditions for animals. The “Animal Care Certified” logo, however, suggests a higher level of care than was actually the case—the program was essentially a codification of factory farming practices including battery cages with a space requirement per hen of about 2/3rds a letter-sized sheet of paper, debeaking, etc. According to polling data, this is exactly what the conscious consumer is trying to avoid. The Better Business Bureau agreed that the logo was misleading to consumers and, ultimately, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) settled with the UEP in an agreement whereby the UEP removed “Animal Care Certified” and replaced it with the more neutral “United Egg Producers Certified” claim.

That process, and the victory COK gained, propelled us into the egg labelling issue on a broader level. Several months after the “Animal Care Certified” removal agreement went into effect, we filed a petition with the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requesting that it mandate the use of egg production methods on cartons as a way to combat the industry’s rampant use of false or exaggerated advertising. The proposed regulation includes the clear identification of “Eggs From Caged Hens.” We later filed a similar petition with the Federal Trade Commission and will soon be filing one with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). We took this approach because our experience with the “Animal Care Certified” issue opened our eyes to the really egregious misleading nature of so many egg labels. More than 95% of eggs sold in the U.S. come from hens kept in wire battery cages—a cruel practice that most consumers oppose once they learn about it. Egg producers know consumers are willing to pay more for “more humane” (i.e. less inhumane) eggs, so they make it seem like their hens were treated better. They don’t have to actually be any less inhumane, they just have to indicate to the consumer that they are. When you look at the landscape of egg labelling in the U.S., you’ll find claims like “Animal Friendly” and “Certified Naturally Raised” as well as images of hens in pastures or with chicks on cartons of eggs from caged hens. In light of such a confusing landscape, establishing a regulatory requirement for producers to disclose whether their hens are caged is needed to provide consumers with accurate information that will enable them to make informed choices in the marketplace.  At the very least, this consumer movement away from the worst factory farm abuses should be given a fair chance.


6. You were recently quoted as saying that a Pennsylvania Court Case has confirmed that ‘foxes are guarding the factory farm hen house?’ (ref: http://www.cok.net/feat/paefi.php) What did you mean?
That quote was used in our press release announcing the recent decision in the case of criminal animal cruelty involving Esbenshade Farms, one of Pennsylvania’s largest egg factory farms. This is the case I mentioned above that was based on undercover footage gathered during an employment based investigation inside the facility.

The quote “Foxes in the Henhouse” is partly a reference to an article by David Wolfson and Marianne Sullivan which explains the legal landscape of laws as applied to farmed animals in the U.S. Essentially, the only laws which deal with on-farm treatment of these animals are state criminal cruelty statutes. Aside from the fact that procedurally it is almost impossible to enforce these laws because they are meant to be enforced by prosecutors rather than private citizens, substantively most of them exclude huge portions of farmed animal treatment. Most states – about 37 – have “common” or “normal” agricultural practices exempted from their cruelty codes. So we’re faced with a situation where an action, which is literally felonious if done to a dog or a cat, is explicitly legal if done to an animal raised for food. The fact that the standard for where to draw the line depends on what the general trends in the industry – rather than based on some objective or ethical sense of what is cruelty to a living being – gives amazingly wide latitude to the industry so it can and does engage in very abusive practices on a widespread level. The reference to the “foxes guarding the henhouse” is meant to point out that our current legal system allows animal agribusiness to regulate itself – these laws grant an entity with clear interest in exploiting animals the power to determine practices and standards with respect to their welfare. Imagine if any other industry was allowed that kind of power – the ability to claim that a standard was acceptable merely because it was commonly done, rather than because it was safe, ethical, or met some public policy goal. It would be absurd.

The reason this quote was used in the context of the Esbenshade Farms case is because the statute at issue there was one such statute. It exempted from protection anything that fell into the category of “normal” in the industry. The issues of severely decomposed birds, impaled birds, stuck birds, and birds left in aisles went on trial for their normalcy. This was the first time a case like this has ever been tried. The trial became focused in large part on expert testimony from both sides. Upon questioning, none of them were able to say these practices were normal (at least of the kind and to the extent they appeared). While the judge did not issue a written opinion on her ruling, she did explain to each side’s counsel her reasoning.  She explained that even though the conditions shown in the video may not have been “normal,” and the video showed clear neglect of animals, she did not have a legal standard to rely upon regarding cruelty to animals in an agricultural operation. Essentially, she created a hole in the law where none existed before. The normal agriculture operation exemption is already in place to make the distinction between treatment to companion animals and farm animals. Acts that fall outside “normal agricultural operations” should, by all reasonable interpretations, be subject to the state’s anti-cruelty code and its attendant requisite levels of mens rea, interpretations of “cruel”, etc. If we were to accept her approach, even when practices are abnormal, there is a separate standard for treatment of farm animals in commercial facilities. This gives double protection to the industry to act with near impunity. The entire scheme is also a double standard, and a very telling example of how farm animals are sometimes viewed in this country – as less than animals and at the mercy of the industry that exploits them.


7.  To what extent do you think animals can be protected (e.g. through litigation or legislation) within a system that classifies them as property?
The classification of animals as property is a significant obstacle, and it is worth trying to change. But I do not see it as the thing holding us back from progress. What we’re trying to do as animal lawyers and animal activists is change social values. We are faced with a system that technically classifies animals as property, but it’s not that simple. Animals are not merely property – yes, they can be bought and sold and usually killed at will, and our economic system relies to an astounding degree on the prices we get from their bodies and from enslaving them. But we are also required by law to kill them without an unreasonable degree of pain when we do kill them, and ostensibly not to abuse them while they are alive. An animal is not the same as a chair in the eyes of the law or in the eyes of the public. We can provide for them in our wills, buy pet health insurance, there are entire social networking websites dedicated to showing off your dog or cat, and just recently several fire trucks worth of firefighters spent hours and several hundred gallons of water to rescue a kitten from a sewer. Most people talk to their dogs or cats, let them sleep in their beds, and refer to them as members of the family. People are fascinated by wildlife, and efforts to conserve wildlife bring in millions of donation dollars a year. At the same time that we love the animals in our homes, we buy and bring their dead bodies into our homes by the billions a year and we maim and kill many millions of wild animals, animals considered to be pests, and homeless dogs and cats, indistinguishable from the “family members” sleeping in our beds. It is impossible to characterize social values about animals in a way that makes sense. Classifying them as property is just one symptom of this confusing and contradictory relationship we have with animals – it is not the problem itself. Until we start changing social values into something more ethically consistent and compassionate, we will not escape this reality of mass animal exploitation. Laws reflect social values and can mobilize nascent ideas to nudge society into a certain direction. They are not enacted to dictate a certain value and then instantly transform society to be in lockstep with that new value. Remember that the goal of animal law is ultimately to change social values so animals are not objectified and abused. The best way we can do that is use the tools we have now to bring our values to the fore. Use the room available in this paradigm of animals as (quasi)property: cruelty laws, tort law, environmental laws, legislative efforts, etc. to make the change in social values. There is massive potential there. Whether their property status erodes as progress is made will almost be merely incidental or symptomatic of the greater shift in values and priorities toward animals. It’s not the word “property” that’s holding us back.

8. Do you have any words of wisdom to share with Australia's budding animal lawyers?
Try not to be discouraged by the magnitude of this task. Remember that every small victory in this field is significant because the vision we have for change is really very expansive. When you look at the substantive laws and procedural avenues, it may appear that the room for meaningful causes of action – or causes of action at all – is nonexistent or paltry. In fact, there really are a lot of useful opportunities in the current legal landscape if you look for them and are willing to take some risks. Don’t give up!