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!

1. 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.”
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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: 

Thank you for reading this post, and for everything you do to make the world better!

Sincerely,

Alene & LIC

P.S. Happy Veterans Day! 🇺🇸

1. ^{^}

   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.