Summary: This paper examines ag-gag laws and how they affect farmed animals, farming employees, industrialized farming operations, and individual rights. It will look at the history of ag-gag laws and how they have changed since becoming more prominent in 2011. It will also explore the constitutionality of these laws and whether the various types hold up to constitutional scrutiny.
Ag-gag laws, also known as “agricultural interference/fraud” laws, are laws designed to prohibit recording or undercover investigations at industrialized farming operations (commonly known as factory farms). Current day ag-gag laws have their roots in the ecoterrorism laws of the early 1990s, but in recent years, there has been a clear shift in priority away from preventing trespassing and property destruction to controlling and stopping recording on industrialized farming operations.
As industrialized farming (also known as factory farming) has become more common in our nation’s culture, concern for the welfare of farmed animals has increased, as well. Because of this, many animal protection organizations have made undercover investigations of industrialized farming operations an integral part of their missions. The goal of these investigations is to expose possible abuse of farmed animals that would otherwise be hidden from the public.
Summary: The Animal Legal Defense Fund and other plaintiffs challenged Utah Code Ann. § 76-6-112, which criminalizes recording images or sounds at industrialized farming operations, and entering industrialized farming operations by false pretenses or misrepresentation. The Plaintiffs alleged that § 76-6-112 violated the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Defendants moved to dismiss on the grounds that the Plaintiffs had not suffered actual harm, and thus did not have standing. The U.S. District Court Judge dismissed some Plaintiffs from the case, but allowed it to move forward.
Summary: This article looks at international wildlife poaching in the 21st century.
Summary: This statute prohibits trespassing to unlawfully collect resource data. Collecting resource data is done by entering onto open land without an ownership interest or permission to collect information or photograph resource data (including animal species). Violation of this law is punishable by imprisonment of not more than one year and/or a $1,000 fine for the first offense, and imprisonment from ten days to a year and/or a $5,000 fine for subsequent offenses.
Summary: This law is known as North Carolinaâs Property Protection Act and is what many consider to be a new variation of ag-gag law. § 99A-2 imposes a civil punishment for âexceeding the scope of authorized access to property.â A person exceeds access to authority by intentionally gaining access to the non-public areas of anotherâs premises and removing (and subsequently distributing) documents, recording images or sounds, placing a camera on the premises, conspiring in organized retail theft, or interfering with property. The punishment for violation of the Property Protection Act can result in equitable relief, compensatory damages, costs and fees, and exemplary damages of $5,000 per day that a defendant has acted in violation. The law is effective January 1, 2016.
This law is known as North Carolina’s Property Protection Act and is what many consider to be a new variation of ag-gag law. § 99A-2 imposes a civil punishment for “exceeding the scope of authorized access to property.” A person exceeds access to authority by intentionally gaining access to the non-public areas of another’s premises and removing (and subsequently distributing) documents, recording images or sounds, placing a camera on the premises, conspiring in organized retail theft, or interfering with property. The punishment for violation of the Property Protection Act can result in equitable relief, compensatory damages, costs and fees, and exemplary damages of $5,000 per day that a defendant has acted in violation. The law is effective January 1, 2016.
Summary: Plaintiff Wild Horse Observers Association, Inc. (Association) appealed the District Court's dismissal for failure to state a claim. The Association claimed that Defendant New Mexico Livestock Board (the Board) had unlawfully treated a group of undomesticated, unowned, free-roaming horses near Placitas, New Mexico as âlivestockâ and âestray,â rather than as âwild horsesâ under the Livestock Code. The Appeals Court concluded that âlivestockâ did not include undomesticated, unowned animals, including undomesticated and unowned horses; therefore, undomesticated, unowned horses could not be âestray.â The court also concluded that the Board had to DNA test and relocate the Placitas horses, and that the Association pleaded sufficient facts in its complaint to withstand a motion to dismiss.
Summary: Petitioner brought this proceeding pursuant to CPLR article 70 and under the common law for a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of Hercules and Leo, two chimpanzees in the custody of respondent State University of New York at Stony Brook. It sought an order directing respondents to demonstrate the basis for detaining Hercules and Leo, and an order directing their release and transfer to a sanctuary in Florida. Respondents opposed the petition and cross moved to change venue. While the Supreme Court of New York County found that neither CPLR 7002(b)(3) nor CPLR 7004(c) required a change of venue to Suffolk County; that the petitioner had standing to bring the case; and that prior proceedings did not bar this case from being heard, the substance of the petition required a finding as to whether a chimpanzee was a legal person entitled to bring a writ of habeas corpus. Since the Court found it was bound by the Third Department in People ex rel Nonhuman Rights Project, Inc. v. Lavery, which ruled that chimpanzees were not âlegal personsâ entitled to the rights and protections afforded by a writ of habeas corpus, it denied the habeas corpus petition and dismissed the proceeding.
Summary: Plaintiffs brought a taxpayer action against defendants based on allegations that defendants committed animal cruelty every summer by transporting pregnant pigs and housing them in farrowing crates at the state fair. One defendant, joined by the other, demurred, contending plaintiffs' complaint failed to state a cause of action for three distinct reasons, including that California's animal cruelty laws were not enforceable through a taxpayer action. The trial court agreed on all accounts, and sustained the demurrer without leave to amend. The Court of Appeals addressed only one of plaintiffs' claims, that contrary to the trial court's conclusion, plaintiffs could assert a taxpayer action to enjoin waste arising out of defendants' alleged violation of the animal cruelty laws. Like the trial court, the appeals court rejected plaintiffs' contention, concluding that they could not circumvent the prohibition recognized in Animal Legal Defense Fund v. Mendes (2008) 160 Cal.App.4th 136, which concluded that recognition of a private right of action under West's Ann.Cal.Penal Code § 597t would be inconsistent with the Legislature's entrustment of enforcement of anti-cruelty laws to local authorities and humane societies, by couching their claim as a taxpayer action. The lower courtâs decision was therefore affirmed.
