Animal Law Podcast #106: A Case Farms Case of Cruelty

[00:00:06] Mariann Sullivan: It's a pleasure to have you. I can't wait to talk about this case. I was just saying before we started recording that I love this case, because I've known about this statute for a long time, and I've always wondered whether there's something we can do about it.

And of course, it turns out to be more complicated what you can do with it than I realized. But cruelty laws, I just think that they are a fascinating. They either do everything or nothing and figuring out exactly where they land in between those is always really interesting.

And of course they're incredibly underused because for the most part, only prosecutors can use them. But in North Carolina, that's a little bit different. And so I think this case is really interesting because of those peculiarities about North Carolina's cruelty laws.

But first, before we get into all of that, I actually debated, should we deal with the law first here because it's so interesting, but I think it's better to take the usual process and deal with the facts.

And I understand this case was the result of an investigation conducted by Animal Outlook. And even before we get into that investigation, can you just give us a little background about the defendant?

[00:01:04] Sarah Gold: Yeah, absolutely. So the investigation was specific to the hatchery, but Case Farms is an integrator, and they own a hatchery and a slaughterhouse, and they also contract out with growers to raise the chickens before slaughter. And so they're involved all throughout the process. You know, incubating the eggs up until the chicks hatch, and growing up until the age of slaughter.

[00:01:26] Mariann Sullivan: And so they're the other piece, you know, we hear a lot about the tournament system or whatever, where all these farmers get the chicks, they grow them, and then the company takes them away. And it's exploitative of both, of course, of the animals, but of the farmers as well.

Case Farms is the company that's doing that, for a large part, is that right?

[00:01:44] Sarah Gold: That's exactly right. So they're really in charge throughout the entirety of the chickens lives. They control the mechanisms by which they are raised, how much food and water they get, and basically control the entire process up until it's time to slaughter them.

[00:01:59] Mariann Sullivan: Most of the conversations I've had about the system are about what happens on the farms. But this is about what Case Farms itself is doing. Can you just tell us where the specific facilities that were the subject of this investigation were located, and what kind of facilities they were, or are?

[00:02:13] Sarah Gold: Sure, so the hatchery that was the subject of the 2021 Animal Outlook Undercover Investigation was in Morganton, North Carolina. That hatchery processes approximately 1 million chicks per week.

[00:02:26] Mariann Sullivan: Oh my god. I must have read that in your papers, but I didn't absorb it. That's unbelievable.

[00:02:32] Sarah Gold: It's a crazy high number.

[00:02:33] Mariann Sullivan: And there was a slaughterhouse too? So, they're both ends of the process.

[00:02:37] Sarah Gold: Exactly. So, the chicks hatch in the Morganton Hatchery and then they're sent out to these grower farms, also close by, but not in the same exact location, and then they're actually transported back to the Slaughterhouse, which is also located in Morganton.

[00:02:51] Mariann Sullivan: All right, so, the investigator from Animal Outlook went into both of these facilities separately, right? Or investigators, I'm not sure it was the same person.

[00:02:59] Sarah Gold: Yeah, so the, the investigator actually only conducted the undercover investigation of the hatchery, but we did obtain other information about what was going on inside of the slaughterhouse from an independent source.

[00:03:11] Mariann Sullivan: Okay. And this investigator did a great job, gathered a lot of information. It's all obviously completely horrifying and we need to know a bit, but can you give us kind of the highlights, not too much horrifying detail, but just to give us a feeling of what it is that you're really talking about here, that this case ended up being about?

[00:03:28] Sarah Gold: Sure. I mean, as you mentioned, it was absolutely awful. The investigator documented acts of both abuse and neglect almost every single day of their employment. And they were there for about three months. The investigator witnessed a variety of cruelty, such as employees trampling on chicks with their feet.

They also routinely drop and throw chicks from such a distance that they get injured when they land on the concrete floor instead of the machinery. They also witnessed Case Farms using defective and unmaintained machinery that actually traps, injures, and kills chicks. And this is truly awful, but employees do instruct one another to actually drive over chicks with machinery.

This cruelty actually does extend to the slaughter plants and grower farms as well. So it's not specific to the hatchery, but the investigation only covered the cruelty that was in the hatchery.

[00:04:17] Mariann Sullivan: Right. And, you know, just, like these little baby chicks. It's unbelievable.

[00:04:22] Sarah Gold: Yeah.

[00:04:23] Mariann Sullivan: But moving on. All right, so we are very used to this process by which undercover investigators find out these horrifying things going on in some kind of factory farm. And then management saying, Oh, my God, this is terrible, and fires the employees, and maybe the employees get charged, and that's where it ends.

That's not what you're doing here. You want to go after Case Farms, right? It sounds like there's mixed evidence of both completely gratuitous, it might've been the employee's idea, but also things that were just embedded in the system. You found evidence that the behavior was either designed by or condoned by management?

[00:05:03] Sarah Gold: That's exactly right. So management was actually aware of the defective machinery and of employees instructing one another to do these things. Management had control over all sorts of aspect of this cruelty and neglect. There was even one instance in which a manager actually informed the workers themselves that chicks had died from overheating because they were left in the hatcher for too long.

And so, all of the facts and evidence points to management being completely aware and condoning this behavior.

[00:05:32] Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, and that's so crucial, but, if you're dealing with a DA, even that evidence, you might not be able to get them interested in it. You know, they love going after whoever it is who's working there, which, you know, I don't have any huge objection to that, but it's really not the goal here.

What you're using here, and this happened to be in North Carolina, which has this kind of special statute, which we're going to get involved in. And, you're the named plaintiff here, not Animal Outlook. At what point did Legal Impact for Chickens get involved in this?

[00:06:00] Sarah Gold: We got involved, pretty much, from the beginning when we saw the investigation came out. I, in particular, have been wanting to use this statute for a while, just as you had mentioned in the beginning. And so this kind of seemed like the perfect test case for it. I think the cruelty is apparent.

And as we'll get into a little bit, North Carolina does have the civil enforcement mechanism that lets groups, such as Legal Impact for Chickens have standing, which is a way to get into court, and be able to sue civilly, to enforce the existing cruelty law.

[00:06:27] Mariann Sullivan: So did you or Animal Outlook pursue any kind of enforcement before bringing this particular action?

[00:06:33] Sarah Gold: Legal Impact for Chickens did not, but I know that the prosecutors definitely declined to pursue any sort of...

[00:06:38] Mariann Sullivan: Okay, so Animal Outlook did do what usually ends up just being this formality that we all have to jump through these hoops of asking the prosecutors to do something, and they declined, so that did happen.

How long after the investigation was completed did you end up bringing this lawsuit? Was there a big gap in time?

[00:06:54] Sarah Gold: There wasn't too big of a gap. The investigation was released, as I mentioned, in 2021, and we ended up filing the lawsuit under two years later, in 2023. You know, these things take time to kind of put together, but it was very much within the three year statute of limitations. And the turnaround was not as slow as you'd expect. And so, we got on it pretty much as soon as we could.

[00:07:14] Mariann Sullivan: Well, that's important too, in this particular case, as opposed to a normal cruelty case, because you're not just talking about what happened in the past. Your case is really about bringing an injunction to stop what's happening now, and there wasn't any question that these practices were still continuing at the time this case was brought, right?

Like there was no implication that this had been fixed, so that your case would have been moot.

[00:07:38] Sarah Gold: That's exactly right. We alleged in good faith that these practices were ongoing and continuing, and we gained evidence based on both complaints brought by other growers from the grower farms about Case Farms cruelty and the slaughterhouse allegations that I mentioned before that we received from an independent source were as recent as the beginning of 2023.

And so all the evidence pointed to the fact that this was not stopping.

[00:08:02] Mariann Sullivan: This happened fast, because a lot of times that whole process of going to the DA or whatever in various cases can take forever. But that's great that it was able to happen so fast. All right, I think that kind of covers the setting, for when you came in. And, you mentioned that you had always wanted to use this statute.

So Animal Outlook hadn't planned it because of North Carolina law. Is that what you're saying? Or had they actually thought this is a good place to do an undercover investigation because not only is there unbelievable amounts of animal agriculture, but they have this very interesting law?

[00:08:32] Sarah Gold: Yeah, they absolutely may have anticipated that as well. And so they did join us as co counsel. They're very eager to bring this suit as well. And so, it was unique in that we kind of had the idea to bring the lawsuit, but they very quickly jumped on board, and that was clearly in the back of their minds as well.

[00:08:46] Mariann Sullivan: All right. So let's talk a little bit about North Carolina law. I don't know whether to ask you about North Carolina cruelty law or just about this, which would you rather talk about? Because you didn't really deal with the cruelty law itself so much in your papers you dealt just with this particular statute that you're allowed to seek a particular remedy with. Let's start with that, the injunction statute, I'm calling it, is it 19A?

[00:09:08] Sarah Gold: 19A.

[00:09:08] Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, but it's the injunction statute. I think that helps me remember it. Let's start with talking about that, and then you can kind of tell us how it relates to the cruelty law. Because 19A is really what's important here.

[00:09:20] Sarah Gold: Yeah, that's right. And I think it's worth mentioning that, while North Carolina is unique and that it does have this sort of civil animal cruelty law with the injunctive remedy, it's actually almost identical to the criminal law. And so it contains the same exemptions. It contains pretty much the same language.

And so when we talk about the civil enforcement mechanism, again, the only difference in the cruelty law itself is the party who's bringing suit and what kind of relief you're obtaining.

[00:09:44] Mariann Sullivan: So what does the statute, 19A, say specifically about what's illegal or what it's subject to and what's exempted?

[00:09:51] Sarah Gold: Chapter 19A provides a, what it calls, a civil remedy for the protection of animals, and it explicitly includes in its definition of animals the category avis, which encompasses chickens. So the chapter very broadly defines the word cruelty, and it includes every act, omission, or neglect, whereby unjustifiable physical pain, suffering, or death is caused or permitted.

[00:10:16] Mariann Sullivan: So that's very classic language. Sounds almost identical to New York's.

[00:10:20] Sarah Gold: Exactly. Yeah, it's not super unique in the cruelty law itself. What's unique is the injunctive remedy.

[00:10:26] Mariann Sullivan: And the exemptions. I mean, we don't have exemptions in New York state's law and North Carolina has some pretty dramatic ones. I don't know the exact history, but I kind of remember hearing that when they enacted this civil remedy, I don't know which came first, the civil remedy or the exemptions, but they definitely wouldn't have this civil remedy if they also hadn't put this belt and suspenders approach to telling you exactly what's exempt from this law.

[00:10:53] Sarah Gold: Yeah, that's right. The statute was enacted in 1969 and originally only contained three exemptions. As the years went on, more exemptions were added. And so today there are a total of 7.

[00:11:04] Mariann Sullivan: And what exemptions specifically? I know this language is very important, so maybe you can just read the two exemptions that are relevant to this case.

[00:11:12] Sarah Gold: Yeah, I'd say most pertinent here, Chapter 19A exempts, first, lawful activities conducted for purposes of production of poultry, and second, lawful activities conducted for the primary purpose of providing food for human or animal consumption.

[00:11:28] Mariann Sullivan: All right, so, obviously the word that jumped out on me when I saw that is lawful. Because I immediately think, well, this isn't lawful. This is clearly a violation of the cruelty law, but then I started thinking about and realized, well, there's kind of a circularity problem involved here.

So, that's very much what they're relying on, but can you just talk about the process of thinking about the relationship between the cruelty law and the injunction law, and why lawful activities doesn't really pin down exactly what's exempt here?

Did that question make sense?

[00:11:58] Sarah Gold: I think so. I think you're right in picking up on the circularity issue and how can an exemption state what is lawful and refer back to itself, meaning like the cruelty law itself? That does seem to be a bit circular. And so I think the key words in these exemption are for purposes of or the word activities as well as purpose or primary purpose and not so much lawful, although I do think there is still an argument to be made to get around that circularity problem that you referenced, which I can talk about in a minute.

[00:12:27] Mariann Sullivan: I'd love for you to talk about it. Yeah.

[00:12:29] Sarah Gold: Yeah, absolutely.

So, you know, I think what's in the complaint and what we alleged are things that are clearly outside the scope of the exemptions and can't possibly be included in the lawful production of poultry, such as the dropping and throwing of live chicks from significant distances. There's no way to put stepping on chicks with your foot or driving over them in the lawful production category, just from a logical standpoint.

[00:12:53] Mariann Sullivan: Can you tell us a little bit about the enforcement of this law? Like, it has been enforced, at least a little bit vis a vis farmed animals. And so you're not totally lacking a history here.

[00:13:04] Sarah Gold: Yeah, that's right. 19A, the civil enforcement, has typically been used to rescue dogs from hoarding situations, as you've alluded to, but I think it's important to also look at the criminal cruelty law here, just given the similarity in language and the exemptions. And that law, ever since it's been enacted, I think the earliest iteration of it was in around 1881, if I'm not mistaken.

[00:13:25] Mariann Sullivan: That's about when a lot of states were starting to pass cruelty laws.

[00:13:28] Sarah Gold: There are actually, you know, a whole array of cases that discuss cruelty toward chickens. And so while it's not necessarily in as large of a scale as the Case Farms Hatchery or Slaughterhouse, it's very clear that courts care about protecting the welfare of chickens and are adamant that the cruelty law applies.

[00:13:46] Mariann Sullivan: We'll get into what they argued, but it would have been very, very easy to just completely say this doesn't apply to farm animals.

Like, they didn't have to use this crazy language that everybody's like, what? What does that mean?

[00:13:58] Sarah Gold: Yeah, it's very much a statutory interpretation question. And I think in this case, had the legislature intended to permit any sort of act of cruelty toward farmed animals, it would have explicitly done so by exempting, let's say, companies that produce poultry or food. Instead, it exempts certain activities that are conducted for specific purposes, and so, in using such particular language, it's clear that it's not a blanket exemption.

[00:14:23] Mariann Sullivan: All right. So let's talk about the case a little bit. What court are you in? Who do you sue under this law and what court do you end up going to?

[00:14:30] Sarah Gold: The statute provides that you have to sue in the district court where the cruelty occurred, and so in this case, the cruelty occurred in Morganton, and so we were actually in district court in Burke County, North Carolina.

[00:14:43] Mariann Sullivan: The complaint has a very extensive recitation of the relevant facts. I can assure everybody it's much longer and much worse than what Sarah has already gone through. It's really bad, bad stuff, but there's just one cause of action, right?

[00:14:56] Sarah Gold: Yeah, that's right. All we're asking for is a permanent injunction prohibiting Case Farms from further violations of 19a. And I think that remedy is very much in line with the legislative intent. And I think while I referenced before that, you know, 19a is typically used to rescue animals, it also contains, this sort of injunctive relief language to prevent further cruelty. And so it's not so out of line to simply ask for preventing further cruelty. I think it would be unfeasible to ask to release all of these chickens that Case Farms has in the hatchery, for a variety of reasons.

That's not what we were asking for.

[00:15:30] Mariann Sullivan: Right. And they do get quite into that and it does seem completely ridiculous. So I'll tell you, if the court wants to release all these chickens, we'll figure it out.

[00:15:39] Sarah Gold: Yeah, we'll take them. We will find them a home.

[00:15:41] Mariann Sullivan: We'll figure it out. It's fine. So, it looks like this motion to dismiss that we're really discussing today, and I should warn people like, you know, this case is in process, so, you know, don't despair.

But, it looks like this motion to dismiss came pretty early on, as motions to dismiss for failure to state a claim frequently do. And of course, on that kind of motion, facts are viewed at the light most favorable to the plaintiff. So the facts were not really at issue in the litigation that's been done so far.

And we can just assume that, you know, everything that you've alleged is true, which I totally assume anyway, but even the court was obligated to assume that. And so, you know, what really happened is not an issue. What you said happened is what's happened. This is just a pure legal question.

So let's get into how would you characterize their basic argument? And, maybe you should preface this by telling me what you told me before about this weird, to me, weird process of how you submit papers in North Carolina on a motion. You both just submit your papers at the same time and don't really respond to each other.

[00:16:44] Sarah Gold: That's right. So North Carolina State Court is vastly different from the majority of other states and you know, obviously federal court in that typically what happens is, you know, a party, defendants, will write a motion to dismiss and then they'll submit their brief. Then the plaintiff and the other side will read that motion and respond to it with a brief of their own, and then they might get a reply brief as well.

But here what happens is that three days before the motion to dismiss hearing, both party's briefs are actually due on the same day. And so when Case Farms files the motion to dismiss, the only thing we receive is pretty much a sentence that says Case Farms moves to dismiss for XYZ, and that's it.

There's no memo attached. There's nothing. And so what we have to do on our side is kind of anticipate their arguments and respond to them accordingly. The only time we actually get to see what they're saying is three days before the hearing and then prepare accordingly.

[00:17:39] Mariann Sullivan: What's so weird about it is this does not seem helpful from the point of view of the court because both of you were kind of just having to guess what the other side was going to say rather than addressing it. So, I'm glad you told me that because I was a little confused and so I just wanted to go over that before we get into the details of the motion so that other people will understand why they are, to some extent, talking at cross purposes, not directly addressing each other's arguments because you didn't know what they were. Can you give us the basic gist of what their basic argument is?

[00:18:07] Sarah Gold: Their basic argument is that as soon as you get into a slaughterhouse, you are completely exempt from cruelty. They read these exemptions that we discussed very broadly, rather than being read narrowly and in line with their intent, they're basically saying that Case Farms is a lawfully operated company, and this statute excludes any sort of cruelty that's done for the primary purpose of producing food.

And Case Farms has its business license, it is operated for the primary purpose of producing chicken for people to eat. And so, they say it's quite clear that these exemptions apply, point blank.

[00:18:43] Mariann Sullivan: So they applied that word primary purpose to the purpose of the company as a whole. As long as that's their business, they can do anything they want to animals.

[00:18:52] Sarah Gold: That's exactly right. They read it broadly and seem to forget, in my opinion, that the exemptions contain the word activities. And so, I think it's important to kind of separate that out.

[00:19:02] Mariann Sullivan: Yeah. And if I'll just read it again, lawful activities conducted for purposes of production of poultry, et cetera, lawful activities, not just lawful companies. Again, would have been very easy to write it another way, if that's what you meant. All right. So they do go through a long list, a long laundry list of ways in which they're complying with the law and saying, this is what this statute meant. They just want to make sure that since cruelty laws aren't going to be applied here, the companies are obeying the law. Do any of the laws that they cited have anything to do with the way animals are treated?

[00:19:35] Sarah Gold: No, they truly don't. So I read kind of what they're trying to do as this preemption like defense, you know, basically saying that the legislature doesn't want courts regulating agriculture. And, they point to the fact that the Department of Agriculture already regulates hatcheries.

Although, as you pointed out, this has nothing to do with the way that chicks are treated. But our argument is that just because agriculture is heavily regulated and Case Farms is complying with other wholly unrelated laws doesn't mean that the civil remedy doesn't apply here.

None of the regulations that they cite, including the federal ones, say that you're not allowed to regulate outside their purview. And so, it doesn't prevent this separate anti cruelty regulation, in other words. Nothing in the rules say, you know, you can be cruel to animals as long as you're inside a building that says chick hatchery. That's not what these rules say.

[00:20:25] Mariann Sullivan: They refer to the fact that they're licensed and say that's one of the reasons that we know that the requirement that their activities are lawful is true. It's like saying, like, if you have a driver's license, everything that you do behind the wheel is lawful, as long as you have a license.

[00:20:41] Sarah Gold: Exactly. It's saying, you know, as long as I'm following the law in one respect, I can totally break the law in another. And so if I'm lawfully in this country and I'm a citizen, therefore I'm allowed to break all other laws. And that's basically what their argument is.

[00:20:57] Mariann Sullivan: They don't go this far, but could one go this far, which one does with other cruelty laws in other states, that anything that makes the production of food cheaper is exempted from the cruelty law? That completely and totally gratuitous cruelty may not be exempt, but as long as it's part of the process that keeps things going, that that means that it's exempt from the cruelty law.

Do they argue that, or could that be a subsidiary argument?

[00:21:22] Sarah Gold: It might be sort of like a byproduct of their argument, but they don't technically or explicitly argue that.

[00:21:28] Mariann Sullivan: That's a really good way of putting it.

[00:21:29] Sarah Gold: They tend to just focus on the primary purpose of the company as a whole is to produce food. And so whatever way they want to go about it, they're just exempt from the cruelty law.

And in effect, what that means is the food sometimes ends up being cheaper, but it's not explicit in their argument.

[00:21:44] Mariann Sullivan: I also noticed, I mean, in combining with that question, which is sort of sub silencio here. It's underneath the reasons for why the law might be this way that, you know, as long as it's for the production of food. Production of food is a good process, it's virtuous, so as long as it's for that it shouldn't be covered by the cruelty law. And, they're judging that by the profitability of the entire enterprise. I mean, it's a cruelty law, and it relates to your conduct towards a particular animal there, and you point out that individual animals are completely wasted.

I mean, if you have to waste, like, 150 chicks in order to be more profitable, they would have no problem with that because they're judging it by the profitability of the enterprise, to the extent that they're judging it by profitability at all. They're judging it by the profitability of the enterprise, not by the actual language of the statute, which is a cruelty law, so it refers to your activities toward a particular animal.

[00:22:38] Sarah Gold: I think that's a great way to put it. I think that the cruelty law is very clearly written and that it protects all individual animals and Case Farm's argument is that the primary purpose and the main product that we get is all of this chicken product. And so if a few go by the wayside, then it's all right.

But, I think that is quite contrary to the actual language of the statute. And not only that, sort of a counter to their whole argument is that these chicks are taken out of production. The ones that they kill early or that they're killed by improper means, they cannot possibly be eaten by humans or animals.

And so, it's very clear to me, at least, that this statute protects those individual animals, like you mentioned.

[00:23:18] Mariann Sullivan: Since the statute required that the behavior had to be for the primary purpose of providing food and for the purpose of production of poultry, to some extent, you use industry standards in your brief, which I thought was really, really compelling.

But can you relate exactly how those industry standards, and what the industry likes to write down about what they're doing, really helped you show here that what they were doing was not for the purposes that this statute requires.

[00:23:43] Sarah Gold: Sure. So, I think it's commonplace in the industry that, you know, USDA inspectors will go in and cite businesses or individual workers who are not complying with the cruelty law, let's say, or doing things improper by industry standards, which happen to sometimes coincide with the cruelty law.

And so in this case, it was a way of sort of showing the ongoing cruelty and that this wasn't an isolated incident, but rather was a pattern of cruelty. And so this wasn't typical of the industry. In the industry, it's typically a floodgates argument, right? Like, can't you just kind of bring this lawsuit for every sort of hatchery that's in operation? And it's like, No, other hatcheries are hopefully following the law and are not engaging in this sort of behavior. And so, by pointing to Case Farms actually going outside the norm and doing things that are not standard and going against the National Chicken Council guidelines kind of proves that point.

[00:24:35] Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, and I, I mean, I think I can say, maybe you shouldn't say it, but I'm not sure it proves that point. But if you have standards, even if a bunch of other hatcheries are violating those standards, those are still the standards. And I think you can still use them in the same way, even if this isn't a total outlier.

Because, you know, there are so many bad actors in this industry. So another thing you emphasize in your brief is the amount of work that that word primary is doing. Can you just go into that a little bit? Maybe we should quote the language again. Lawful activities conducted for the primary purpose.

Like none of the other exemptions use that word primary purpose, primary, of providing food for human or animal consumption. What do you think it's doing there? What were they trying to convey?

[00:25:15] Sarah Gold: Yeah, I thinkk that's right. I think that the activity and the torture that's done, it has to actually be for the main purpose. If you look at what does primary mean? It's usually like, not the sole objective, but the most important one. And so, in each act of cruelty, in each act of neglect, is the primary purpose of doing that to provide food for humans or for animals.

And I think that the word primary, like you said, was stuck in there purposefully. The other exemption simply says purposes. And this is the only exemption that has the word primary. And so I think it has that heightened standard and showcases that, it really must be the case that each act of cruelty has to be done for that specific purpose and with that intent.

[00:25:58] Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, they're very eager to ignore certain things about this statute because superficially it looks great. Superficially, this statute looks fine. It's like, by putting an exemption for lawful activities within the cruelty law itself, you're creating this circularity that it's really hard to know what it means.

But if you've been clear, you don't have to rely on that. I mean, one of the confusing things about the papers here was that they were really confronting that argument, which you ended up not really making. Do you think that they're really saying that anything that you do to an animal inside a farm that is complying with all other applicable but completely unrelated laws is not a violation of the animal cruelty law? Like, they're saying you can deliberately torture an animal and throw their body in the garbage and that's fine.

[00:26:42] Sarah Gold: Yes, that is exactly what they're saying. And I actually think it's helpful here to look at one of the other exemptions that we haven't yet discussed to kind of get at the absurdity of the argument. And they did explicitly reference this in their brief as well, which is, there is an exemption also for activities that are conducted for lawful veterinary purposes.

And so Case Farm's argument is that a veterinarian who performs surgery on a dog, who doesn't have anesthesia just for some sadistic reason or for no reason at all is exempt from the cruelty law just because this was done in a vet practice or in a building that had the word veterinarian on the outside.

You know, it could be that the vet's colleague is performing surgery on a dog that is under anesthesia in the next room. But the vet practice under Case Farm's interpretation is the one that gets the exemption and not the activity, which, again, I think just leaves out that there is the word activity written in the exemption.

[00:27:38] Mariann Sullivan: Their argument wouldn't only apply to these particular exemptions. It would really skew the interpretation of any of the exemptions, as if cruelty can't take place in a certain place.

[00:27:49] Sarah Gold: That's exactly right. And so, it is a bit scary to think about the implications here because a vet could technically, under their interpretation, under such a broad reading, could walk into their veterinary practice and shoot a dog, and that wouldn't be considered cruelty under the statute because it was in the vet practice.

[00:28:08] Mariann Sullivan: Now, North Carolina's, this is not totally a fair question, but I'll ask it anyway. but, North Carolina's law, as we pointed out in the beginning, is a little different, because of the way its exemptions are worded, it's a little different than most cruelty laws. They usually talk about exempting customary farming practices, which is still terrible, but sort of clarifies a little bit more clearly what we're talking about. And it makes it clear that it's not the place where this takes place, it's the customariness of the particular practice that exempts it. Do you know if North Carolina, I mean, assuming this is the proper interpretation of this law, would North Carolina be the only state that has this kind of complete exemption?

[00:28:52] Sarah Gold: That's a good question. I mean, I.

[00:28:53] Mariann Sullivan: I told you it wasn't a fair question. Like there's 50 states I know, none of us know all the laws, but.

[00:28:59] Sarah Gold: Yeah, I mean, there might be other states that have exemptions for animals in agriculture. I think that's a fair understanding, but you're right. It's typically phrased as common industry practices and so I'm not sure. It definitely is the only one that uses this language of purpose or primary purpose and lawful activity.

So regardless, it is unique in that sense. But again, even if there are other states or are not other states, if that was the correct interpretation about the place where the cruelty occurred, that would have been how the statute was written.

[00:29:30] Mariann Sullivan: That would be very easy to write. Yeah. As we've pointed out. Yeah. Was there anything else about their arguments that I was going to move on to talking about the remedy, which we've already discussed a little bit, but was there anything else about the arguments that I missed?

[00:29:42] Sarah Gold: No, I think we've covered them all.

[00:29:44] Mariann Sullivan: All right. The remedy. Now I understand this better because I realized they didn't see your papers, but they were assuming you were arguing that you wanted custody of the chickens, which, you know, like I said, fine, we'll figure it out.

Everybody out there, be prepared to adopt a couple of chickens just in case this happens.

[00:29:59] Sarah Gold: Well, I do think they couldn't have actually thought that's what we meant because we were very specific in the complaint in that we were seeking injunctive relief to prohibit further cruelty. We never mentioned any sort of injunction for taking the animals. That was never the intent.

I think what Case Farms was arguing here is that the statute only provides for a remedy of an injunction by way of rescuing animals, but that's simply not true. I think that it offers, as a preliminary and permanent injunction, the option to do so, but it's very clear that just seeking injunctive relief to prevent further cruelty is a separate remedy that is anticipated by the statute.

[00:30:39] Mariann Sullivan: I mean, otherwise it would mean that the more animals you're being cruel to, the less able the courts are to do anything about it. I mean, it's completely irrational.

[00:30:47] Sarah Gold: Exactly. And it's just contrary to the purpose of the statute, which explicitly is to provide a civil remedy for the protection of animals.

[00:30:56] Mariann Sullivan: It's called an injunction. Like, we've seen injunctions before where you don't have to go in and take possession of everything that's at risk in the lawsuit. That's not usually how it works. Alright, how would this injunction work? What particular behavior are you asking to get enjoined and how would it be enforced?

[00:31:12] Sarah Gold: Yeah, that's a great question. And I think it's one that we didn't necessarily touch on too much because I think at this stage, it's most important to kind of get where we're at. But I think that that would require a separate hearing in terms of you know, exactly what sort of

[00:31:24] Mariann Sullivan: they kind of said that you were particular. How could you be particular at this point? I mean, there's been no development of the facts at all. Yeah.

[00:31:32] Sarah Gold: Yeah, it could take a, you know, variety of form. It could be in an independent audit, someone in charge of investigating and making sure that these cruel behaviors that were described in the complaint are no longer continuing. It could be, even us hiring someone to go ahead and do that.

I don't think that they would like that, but there are all sorts of ways to ensure that cruelty laws get enforced that actually don't take up resources of the court. And so, it's possible. It's been done before. I know that in the Woodley case, which was, you know, pretty much the standard 19A case that was brought a while back.

That was a hoarding situation. And as part of the injunction that was issued, it was to prevent further violations of the statute and it worked there. And so it's not so far fetched that we're asking for that here.

[00:32:16] Mariann Sullivan: Yeah. It would hardly be useful to get possession of these million chickens and then just have them like create another million chickens tomorrow, which is basically what they're in the business of doing.

[00:32:25] Sarah Gold: That's exactly right.

[00:32:26] Mariann Sullivan: All right. All this has been fascinating and lovely. And now let's get to the bad part and I'm not sure an unexpected thing, but let's talk about the court's decision. He really spent a lot of time on it, didn't he?

[00:32:38] Sarah Gold: Oh, yeah. So we had the motion to dismiss hearing on December 5th of 2023, and unfortunately, the judge did dismiss the case. He found that the exemptions applied. But, here at Legal Impact for Chickens, we are in the process of appealing the case to the North Carolina Court of Appeals because, as discussed, we believe that the exemptions should be interpreted narrowly and in line with their intent.

And so, yeah. We will keep you posted. Stay tuned.

[00:33:07] Mariann Sullivan: You mentioned it was from the bench. Had there been an argument?

[00:33:09] Sarah Gold: Yes.

[00:33:10] Mariann Sullivan: Was there anything interesting that came up in argument that you hadn't gleaned from the papers? And did they actually, you know, I now know this wasn't really their fault, but they didn't really respond to your argument.

Their papers were all about whether what they were doing was lawful, and that was not really your argument. And I'm sure they didn't really want to have to respond to your argument, but I was kind of wondering whether, at least at the argument stage, that they did actually confront what you were really arguing, that it was the other language having to do with purpose and that language that was really the thing that was relevant here.

Did they go there at all?

[00:33:42] Sarah Gold: A little bit. I think it was mainly just sort of a recitation of what was, you know, contained in their brief, but they did very much focus on that the statute should be interpreted broadly. And then they really had this focus on all of the other ways in which agriculture is already being regulated.

And they were just very adamant that the exemptions applied. And that was pretty much what they argued.

[00:34:03] Mariann Sullivan: Yeah So pretty much the same as their papers. Well, yeah, disappointing. And God, mean, I don't like it when a judge rules against me, but I really don't like it when they won't engage with the issues. Like, that's just, it's very disappointing. And you really have, you really end up going about your appeal with the exact same arguments that you were making below, because they haven't been developed in any way by the court's analysis, because there was really no analysis.

[00:34:29] Sarah Gold: Yeah, that's right. So, you know, we're just kind of curious to see what's going to happen. We remain hopeful. I think this is the correct interpretation. I really do.

[00:34:37] Mariann Sullivan: Maybe, and of course, that might be why the court didn't engage with it. One is that they'd like to pretend that they don't have to take us seriously, but you know, wake up guys, things have changed, and Legal Impact for Chickens is in town. Um, and, but also, it's not easy to engage with this and come up with the wrong answer, I think so. Well, we will be really looking forward to this one. I would love to see the briefs because finally in the briefs, there will be this opportunity to engage in the way that normal litigation takes place.

So, we will be looking forward to that and I wish everything didn't take so long. And thank you for sharing it with us. I'm super excited about this case. I think there is more in cruelty laws than we imagine, and I'm excited that lawyers are starting to uncover that.

[00:35:20] Sarah Gold: Yeah, well, thank you so much for having me. It's been wonderful speaking with you.

[00:35:23] Mariann Sullivan: And tell me a little bit about what's happening at Legal Impact for Chickens. Anything else you'd like to bring us up to date on?

[00:35:29] Sarah Gold: We have a bunch of ideas. We have some litigation that is almost ready to be brought, but we're still working on developing some new cases, and we'll keep you posted soon.

[00:35:37] Mariann Sullivan: Okay, great. I'll be looking forward to that. Thanks, Sarah.

[00:35:41] Sarah Gold: Yeah, thank you.