Can an S.P.C.A. Prevent Cruelty to Cows? with Alene Anello

[00:00:07] Mariann Sullivan: Aw, thanks. I'm thrilled to have you and I'm thrilled to hear about this case and actually the issues that we're gonna be talking about in this case are really preliminary. They're also super important and they, they don't really get into the facts. But before we start talking about that, I would like to get a little of the background on the factual situation.

So can we just start with maybe you telling me what Alexandre Family Farm is?

[00:00:28] Alene Anello: Yes, the name sounds very innocent, but Alexandre Family Farm is in fact, a poorly run industrial dairy company based in California and multiple rancher whistleblowers have spoken out about the way that Alexandre Family Farm abuses its animals, including pouring salt into cow's eyes, cutting off a sick cow's teat with a dirty pocket knife, dragging disabled cows across concrete and more. This company sells its products all across the country, including in Whole Foods.

[00:01:04] Mariann Sullivan: Wow. Uh, and it's kind of unusual for a dairy company to sell its products across the company, isn't it?

[00:01:10] Alene Anello: Yes, Alexandre Family Farm is very big on marketing and have a well known brand.

[00:01:17] Mariann Sullivan: Yeah. And in case anybody's wondering and you hear chirping, that's Alene's bird, so just, just enjoy it. Um, alright. They not only have a horrible dairy and do horrible things, but they advertise themselves as really, really progressive, right? They call themselves regenerative, a word that is increasingly driving me insane because it seems to be one of those words that means very different things to different people.

What does Alexandre mean when they call themselves regenerative?

[00:01:43] Alene Anello: I don't fully understand it. It's very disturbing. It has something to do. I mean, I think regenerative agriculture in general is a really good idea, but the way that Alexandre tries to implement it is very disturbing. I think the idea has to do with trying to protect land, and have animals and the land living in symbiosis.

But the way that Alexandre does it involves practices like, intentionally underfeeding cows to try to force them to eat weeds that they don't want to eat, and putting cows on land that can't sustain them, and then making the cows quote/unquote sacrifice, in one of the owner's words and get thinner. So I don't think that Alexandre Family Farm is a good example of regenerative agriculture, and in fact, the Regenerative Agriculture Alliance has spoken out against Alexandre's treatment of animals.

[00:02:36] Mariann Sullivan: And I think it was an undercover investigation by Farm Forward that started your particular interest in, in looking into Alexandre and is that right? And can you tell us a little bit about Farm Forward and without too many horrifying details, some of what you've already shared, what the investigation uncovered?

[00:02:53] Alene Anello: It wasn't so much an undercover, well, I guess there was an element of it that was undercover, but a lot of it was just people coming forward, rancher whistleblowers, speaking to Farm Forward and saying, we have concerns about Alexandre, so this wasn't something where. animal people went in looking for evidence.

It was more something where people within the industry were very concerned and spoke out, and then animal people got interested.

So yeah, Alexandre, when its cows, can no longer be used for dairy. It will try to sell them for meat at auction. And when it wants to sell them for auction, it will try to pretend that they're healthier than they are, or make it seem like their health problems are more manageable than they are.

And so I think this might be how more and more people start getting involved and finding out what's going on. Because people go to the auctions to buy meat, buy cows for meat, and then they see Alexandre selling these cows with patches over their eyes. Alexandre puts these patches on cow's eyes to hide that the cows have eye cancer, so that the buyer will think maybe it's a more treatable illness that the buyer could treat with antibiotics, and then the buyer will find out after buying the cow, oh no, this cow has cancer and can't be used for meat and needs to be euthanized. But in the process, Alexandre just prolonged that animal suffering by keeping them alive, really disturbingly pouring salt in their eyes and covering their eye up with a homemade patch all just to sell them to someone who ultimately will need to euthanize them. So that's one of the ways that people found out.

There's also an employee who has sued Alexandre for issues and mentioned animal cruelty in the lawsuit. For a while you could even see some of the things Alexandre was doing wrong by just driving by. They had a bunch of calves out in these little hutches. And they locked the calves into the hutches so the calves couldn't set foot outside, and the hutches just filled with feces. And we actually found a Google Maps review where the reviewer had taken a photo from the street. So, there was some investigation element by Farm

[00:04:58] Mariann Sullivan: Okay.

[00:04:58] Alene Anello: going to an auction to learn more. But sadly, a lot of it was just that the cruelty was so extreme that it kind of felt like it was oozing out and coming out in all these different ways.

[00:05:08] Mariann Sullivan: All right. So, yeah, I hadn't realized that. That's good clarification. And, and also you know, kind of good to know that this can bubble to the surface even without undercover investigations. And people do do things like post it on Google Maps and like the fact that people are becoming aware that these things are important.

Alright, so it's probably obvious by now from the things you've said. Can you give us an idea? Uh, and then California's cruelty laws are reasonably, well not elaborate, but you know, there are a number of provisions. So, can you just kind of give us an idea, spell out some of the examples of how their treatment of cows are violations of California's laws?

[00:05:48] Alene Anello: Yeah. So one thing that I think is very interesting to talk about that I would love more people to know about is California has a law called Penal code 5 97 T that says that you can't confine an animal without an adequate exercise area. Of course, these calves kept in these tiny hutches where they couldn't even set foot outside the hutch in their own feces, often left to die, did not have an adequate exercise area.

So that's one of the things where there's a very clear law that describes exactly what they're doing. And the reason I find that interesting is because extreme confinement is a big problem in agriculture, and I think a lot of people believe the only solution is to protest or to get new lats passed. And I think it's interesting to note that in some cases, extreme confinement might just violate an existing animal cruelty law. So we should always be looking at state's animal cruelty laws to figure out if certain types of animal abuse are already illegal. Other examples are the law... California's law is written so broadly that even trying to describe it, I can't remember all the words in it, but it says: you can't overwork an animal, you can't overdrive an animal, you can't deprive an animal of necessary sustenance, something to that effect. It goes on and on and on extremely long with a lot of broad concepts that overlap each other, saying what is not allowed to really, really make sure that the kinds of things that we would think of as cruelty are not allowed. So to give a quote, I'm not gonna say the whole thing because it's way too long, but every person who maliciously and intentionally maim, mutilates, tortures or wound living animal or maliciously, intentionally kills an animal, is guilty of a crime. Every person who overdrives, overloads, drives one overloaded, overwork, tortures, torment, deprives of necessary sustenance, drink or shelter, cruelly beats, mutilates, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, is guilty of a crime and it keeps going. So I think that really the important thing to know about California's cruelty law is it just outlaws cruelty. If something seems cruel to the general public, there's a good chance that that is a violation of California's extremely broad cruelty law. So things like putting salt in a cow's eyes when there's no medical benefit that or keeping an animal alive that you know is ultimately gonna be euthanized just to make a little bit of extra money and not providing any care for that animal, they seem to clearly violate California's cruelty law.

[00:08:08] Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, that salt allegation, I don't know what it is about it. 'cause you hear about all sorts of unbelievably horrible things done to animals, but I think that we can all just imagine how that feels and it's just hideous. But anyway, it sounds like you know, California's laws are pretty similar to a lot of states.

So, you know, you look at any of the laws and you would think that a great deal of what's done in factory farming has gotta be illegal. But of course, you know, nobody's bringing those cases. Though, that exercise thing, that's pretty specific and not that many, I don't know other states that have that law and it seems to me that the legislators of California outlawed factory farming a long time ago, and nobody's ever done anything about it. So it's about time somebody got these cases into court. And that's what you're gonna do. As I said, these aren't really, these issues aren't that relevant to the issue we're discussing today.

But if you can't resolve the issue we're discussing today in your favor, they're not gonna get into court. So let's review a little of the relevant law before we get to the issue at hand, because the question is as always, is there a way to get into court and can you kind of lay out for us the relevant provisions of California law, which govern, and this is what becomes relevant, um, governs humane societies and societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals, or I guess SPCAs.

I kind of also had trouble figuring out whether, whether those two things are the same thing. Is a humane society and an SPCA the same thing? So are they the same thing? And what is the law that governs them?

[00:09:39] Alene Anello: So California is so cool. I live in California. I love it. It's such a great state and it has really good laws. And if the laws were be used and followed, we'd be in a much better situation. And so that's what we're trying to do at Legal Impact for Chickens. There's two statutes that are really exciting that we are using in this lawsuit. The first one is California Corporations Code Section ten four oh four, and the second one is California Corporations Code Section 14 5 0 1. And these are sort of belt and suspenders statutes, providing ways to make sure that animal welfare issues can be addressed in court, even if police and prosecutors are very busy with other things and aren't focused on it. California Corporations Code Section ten four oh four says that a specially incorporated corporation for the prevention of cruelty to animals can proffer a complaint for the violation of any law relating to animals. Legal Impact for Chickens is a specially incorporated society for the prevention of cruelty to animals under California law. So to put it together, that section lets Legal Impact for Chickens sue for animal cruelty. Then there's another statute called 14,501 in the same corporations code that has somewhat different wording, but it is also broader, but it includes some of the same abilities. So it says that a humane society can enforce laws relating to animals and can do that by making a contract with a city or county, or can just do it on its own.

So basically, a humane society could make money by getting paid to enforce the laws relating to animals, or it could just do what we do and collect donations from donors and use charitable money to supplement the state's ability to protect animals. So these statutes are very old and they are written a little confusingly. The word humane society, and the word society for prevention of cruelty to animals and corporation for prevention of cruelty to animals are all used interchangeably in the statute and in the case law. But that's the statutes that we're suing under.

[00:11:47] Mariann Sullivan: And does this give you the power or to bring whatever kind of action is authorized under these statutes to enforce all of the cruelty laws?

[00:11:55] Alene Anello: Yes, they're broadly written. In fact, ten four oh four goes beyond, they both do ten four oh four goes even beyond cruelty laws to just laws relating to animals. So you could even enforce a law that might not be thought of as a cruelty law, but that is like somehow protecting animals. Like if there is a law governing the treatment of endangered species, or in the past it's been used to enforce a law, a local law, limiting how many dogs you could have, and that was used by the Animal Legal Defense Fund and by Caru Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals to stop somebody from hoarding too many animals on their property and abusing the animals.

[00:12:33] Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, we actually did an interview about Caru. It was a long time ago, but we were on top of it here at Our Hen House. You mentioned that Legal Impact for Chickens, as was Caru, is an SPCA. So can you tell us how that came, I mean, you didn't just like say we're at SPCA, you had to go through some kind of process, I assume.

[00:12:51] Alene Anello: Yeah, so at the time that we were incorporated, Legal Impact for Chickens was incorporated in 2021. And at the time we were incorporated from the very beginning, we incorporated as a society prevention of cruelty animals. So when you're creating a new entity, you can create it in different forms.

There's LLCs, there's partnerships, and there's corporations. And for a corporation, you, um, incorporate it under state law. So because we are incorporated in California, we had to incorporate it under California law. So the state will lay out the process for creating a corporation. And for California it has a special option that you can create a corporation for the prevention of cruelty to animals as a special type of corporation. And in order to do that, you need to have 20 different incorporators who are within California. A normal corporation, I think needs only one or maybe two incorporators. so we had to get signatures from 20 people who wanted to support the creation of this entity. And then you need to have your mission, be focused on the prevention of cruelty to animals, use certain language in your articles of incorporation, and then you send that all to the Secretary of State, I believe you send it all to the California government

[00:14:05] Mariann Sullivan: I'm sure you sent it to whoever you were supposed to send it to.

[00:14:08] Alene Anello: We send it to the right people. Yeah.

[00:14:10] Mariann Sullivan: Alright, let's get to the lawsuit cause that was all preliminary and you know, I assume you're in California court, and was the name of the county, Humboldt. Is that the name of the county?

[00:14:19] Alene Anello: Humboldt. Yes.

[00:14:20] Mariann Sullivan: Is that a rural county with a lot of agriculture?

[00:14:24] Alene Anello: Yes. Humboldt is a really cool place. It is rural and it is fun and it is very unique. I think that if you imagine a rural place. That's not Humboldt, you will be not getting it right. It's very unique, special place. It is originally very well known for the marijuana industry and so

No

[00:14:45] Mariann Sullivan: wonder it's fun.

[00:14:45] Alene Anello: but a lot of it is marijuana and the people there are very mixed demographically.

There's like lots of very liberal people, lots of very conservative people all getting along and having opinions but still being nice to each other. It is like a cool, fun, amazing place, and yes, it is somewhat rural.

[00:15:05] Mariann Sullivan: Oh, sounds, sounds like a fascinating place. Alright, so you filed your complaint and Alexandre then filed what is known as a demurrer in California, which the rest of us in the rest of the country, I don't know whether it's the entire rest of the country, usually, say what? And I think at least in New York, it would be a motion to dismiss for failure to state a cause of action.

So very preliminary. We don't have, it's not like a summary judgment or anything. We don't have to consider who's got the facts right and wrong. It's just have you stated a cause of action and what relief are you seeking?

[00:15:34] Alene Anello: We're seeking an injunction. So

[00:15:37] Mariann Sullivan: And against whom?

[00:15:39] Alene Anello: Against Alexandre Family Farm and the three individual defendants who are three of the owners and managers of it. So there's three Alexandres. Their last name is all Alexandre. It's so simple what we want, and it's really sad that we have to have a lawsuit to get this and that the Alexandres aren't just offering it up to us, but we just want an order saying that the Alexandres can't put salt in a cow's eyes anymore, can't keep calves in hutches so small that they can't move, can't starve cattle, and generally that they have to comply with the cruelty law. So it, it seems like a thing that should be a win-win and that everybody should be on the same page with, but unfortunately, it's a fight and we are needing to get the court involved.

[00:16:22] Mariann Sullivan: You're seeking an injunction and you, you had already mentioned corporations court. Quote 1 0 4 0 4, which is the statute you're acting pursuant to. But there's also, I saw in your papers this civil code 33 69, which is not an animal related statute, but talks about when you, 'cause there's kind of a weird thing going on here.

Well, I don't know whether it's weird, but the defendants make a huge, big deal about it, of about getting an injunction to enforce a criminal law. And this is the statute that addresses that issue, right?

[00:16:54] Alene Anello: California Civil code 33 69 says neither specific nor preventative relief can be granted to enforce a penalty or forfeiture in any case, nor to enforce a penal law except in a case of nuisance or is otherwise provided by law. So basically what this statute is saying is you can't just say, anytime somebody committed a crime, now I can sue them. So like if your neighbor is, I don't know, selling illegal drugs, you can't automatically say, I'm gonna sue them because they're selling illegal drugs. You would need some other cause of action for why you can sue them.

And in fact, 33 69 mentions nuisance. So you maybe you could sue your neighbor for creating a nuisance by selling illegal drugs, but let's say it's a stranger, not your neighbor, then maybe there's no cause of action. You can't just

[00:17:42] Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, you,

[00:17:43] Alene Anello: and be like, I wanna sue you.

[00:17:44] Mariann Sullivan: You're expected to go to the government 'cause it's a public harm and the government is supposed to bring a criminal complaint if they're breaking a criminal law. It's not a private matter. Is that the idea behind that? Yeah.

[00:17:55] Alene Anello: And I think that this is what most law students assume to begin with, that criminal laws are gonna be enforced in the criminal system, and civil laws are gonna be enforced in the civil system. And most lawyers think of it that way too. So it, it's not like a groundbreaking statute, but luckily it clarifies that there is an exception, when otherwise provided by law.

So the California legislature does have the power to create a statute that says. In this situation, you can sue somebody for committing a crime. And so, as I mentioned, corporations code ten four oh four and 14 5 0 1 very clearly say that society's for the prevention of cruelty to animals can bring cases to stop animal cruelty and to enforce the cruelty law.

And so the best reading of that is that they're saying we can bring civil cases for injunctive relief. So the requirements of 33 69 that something be otherwise provided by law are met. The defendants, however, brought that up as an issue that we are now having to argue with them about in the court.

[00:18:59] Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, this seems to be their big issue because as usual, defendants in cases related to animals, put a lot of energy into trying not to get to the facts of what's happening to the animals. And there's a lot of energy being put to this. And as you said, these statutes aren't crystal clear, but there are actually been some, some cases that have interpreted them.

And that's where it seems like there's a lot of shenanigans going on here about, uh, what those cases say. And you actually, some of them are not appellate cases, so they're not reported cases. And you actually had to find the decisions and actually submit them to the court. Is that right?

[00:19:36] Alene Anello: Yes. I love that you said the word shenanigans. That's. That's your word, not mine, but I resonate with that. So, it's really exciting that you had Caru on your podcast. There's a wonderful lawsuit, Caru v Anthony, where a society for the prevention of cruelty to animals sued a puppy mill that was breeding and mistreating dogs and hoarding them. And it went all the way up to the California Court of Appeal. And the Court of Appeal said like, yes, you can do this using corporations code ten four oh four. So that case is very good for us. However, even though it did go to the court of appeal is an unreported case, which means it's not precedential. So it can be something that a court can look at to see the reasoning and see do I agree with the judge's reasoning, but it's not something that binds the court or that the court would cite as. Uh, the court wouldn't say that this case is my reason for doing the thing. It would have to be that the court could be inspired by that case and convinced by the reasoning in that case. But we think the reasoning in that case is convincing and we think appellate judges are smart and we hope that the judge will be convinced by the reasoning in that case. And we think that the defendants also agree that that case is bad for them because we filed a request for judicial notice about that case with the court, the defendants filed an objection to our request for judicial notice telling the court not to take notice of that case. But ironically, the defendants had asked the court to take notice of a different unpublished case. So they said, don't take notice of it because it's not published. But then they asked the court to take notice of a different unpublished case. So I think what they really meant was just like when you're watching a movie and somebody makes a really good point and then the other side goes Objection. And their real objection is just, that's a really good point. So. Yeah, I think that case is very good for us. There's also these two published California appellate cases, Animal Legal Defense Fund versus Mendez and Animal Legal Defense Fund versus California Exposition and State Fair

[00:21:33] Mariann Sullivan: Oh, they make quite a big deal of those two cases. And I guess that's what I was talking about, shenanigans. 'cause I was really confused reading all the papers, like thinking what, what, what, what's going on here? Because there was a lot of different allegations about what those cases stood for.

[00:21:49] Alene Anello: Yeah, it's really funny because we read those cases and we see them as very clearly supporting our argument, and yet the defendant is using them to support the defendant's argument.

So everyonee agrees these cases matter. We just disagree on how to interpret them. So basically, there are two very similar cases in both of them Animal Legal Defense Fund itself was the plaintiff not representing another party like Caru SPCA. And Animal Legal Defense Fund is not an SPCA, it's just a normal California corporation. It's not, it doesn't have 20 incorporators, it doesn't fit the definition of a corporation for the prevention of cruelty to animals in California. So Animal Legal Defense Fund in both those cases, tried to find a way to sue to enforce the animal cruelty law civilly, but they didn't use ten four oh four or 14 5 0 1 to do it because I don't know why, actually. So they tried to do it in other ways, and in both cases, the Court of appeals said, no, you can't do that in this way. And then the Court of Appeal redirected them to look at sections like ten four oh four. So I don't have the exact quote in front of me, but in Mendez, the court explained that the reason you're not allowed to just sue to enjoin cruelty as a random nonprofit is that we have this whole schema in our state of explaining how the cruelty laws will be enforced. And so the legislature wouldn't have created this whole schema with things like ten four oh four if it wanted any nonprofit to be able to sue. So in essence, the way Reread Mendez, it's saying only corporations for the prevention of cruelty to, to animals that are especially incorporated can sue not just any animal protection organization. So the defendants, I think, read it to just say, well, somebody lost when they were trying to help animals. So everyone who tries to help animals will lose, which I don't think is the right way to interpret them.

[00:23:49] Mariann Sullivan: Well, but at, at some point, maybe it was during the oral, I mean, did I see that the defendants actually did claim that, that A LDF was an SPCA and uh, and it was just FII assume it was just factually incorrect from what you're saying.

[00:24:02] Alene Anello: Yeah. It was a little frustrating for me personally because I worked at Animal Legal Defense Fund and I know that it's not an SPCA, and we tried to correct that in our brief, kind of thinking like, oh, this is embarrassing for the defendant. Let's correct it. They can see the correction and then they will stop making that argument at oral argument.

But I guess they like, I don't know, they didn't pay attention when we tried to correct that. Um, and so, oh wait, you know what? I take that back. I don't think we corrected it in our brief because I think they brought that argument up in their reply brief.

[00:24:36] Mariann Sullivan: Oh, okay.

[00:24:37] Alene Anello: So by the time they brought that argument up, we had no briefs left. And so our plan was, as we were thinking, should we submit another brief? But instead we decided as soon as my colleague Isabella Nielsen, who's very impressive and did the oral argument, as soon as she starts talking, one of the first things she said was, we just wanna correct this mistake in the reply brief. Animal Legal Defense Fund is not an SPCA. And in case anyone didn't believe her, she's like, you can see the articles of incorporation. Like she, she explained all the details for how somebody could look up the documents and tell, and we just thought that will get that outta the way.

The defendants might be embarrassed, but they'll just move on to their other arguments that they made in their initial brief, but instead, they just kept sticking with that argument. I'm not sure why.

[00:25:16] Mariann Sullivan: Yeah. Alright. Tell us a little bit more about the oral argument. Unfortunately, Isabella could not be with us today, but I'm sure she, just from reading the transcript, it sounded like she did an amazing job. It was a model of clarity. Anything else that, that you thought was particularly notable?

It sounded like the judge was taking it pretty seriously to me.

[00:25:35] Alene Anello: Definitely. Yeah, she did do an amazing job. I wish Isabella was here today because she's extremely good with words. So if the listener is thinking, I can't understand what Alene is saying, I'm sorry, I'm not Isabella. She can phrase things so clearly and succinctly and her vocabulary, she'll like find exactly what she wants to say.

But um, our biggest fear in this case is that the judge just wouldn't pay that much attention because we felt that if you really look at it, we are obviously right, but if you kind of glance at it and don't look too closely, then you might think the defendants are right. So we really wanted a judge who had time to pay attention to the case because we know that the district court judges in California state court are extremely busy and they have a lot

[00:26:16] Mariann Sullivan: Yeah.

[00:26:16] Alene Anello: of cases and they don't have clerks. So we were just thinking like, please have this judge have time, and be able to think about it. So I think that we had an amazing judge. He is very kind and he came across like he really understood what was going on. He asked some follow up questions that clarified that he had looked at the briefs and remembered what cases were cited in the briefs. So that's a very good sign.

[00:26:41] Mariann Sullivan: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:26:42] Alene Anello: Said that he'll probably take about 90 days to make an a ruling, which is the maximum that he's legally allowed to take under the law or else I think his salary gets revoked or something if he takes more than 90 days on a ruling. It's

[00:26:55] Mariann Sullivan: That's pretty harsh.

[00:26:56] Alene Anello: Yes. So we saw it as a good sign that he said he would take 90 days

[00:27:00] Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, no, he, I, I thought that, I thought that was too, it just sounded like he understood that this was a case that, you know, took some real looking into, that it was not a superficial case.

[00:27:10] Alene Anello: We had just sat before a previous case where he, the issues were simpler and he said, oh, I'm sure I can get you a ruling really quickly. And for us, he kind of said the opposite. So that made me feel like understands that this one is gonna take more time than some of the other cases.

He's not gonna just believe something the defendant said he's gonna like check like. Is the Animal Legal defense fund an SPCA and he will find that

[00:27:32] Mariann Sullivan: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:27:33] Alene Anello: so yeah.

[00:27:35] Mariann Sullivan: I the attor. I mean, aside from the whole thing about ALDF being an SPCA, the attorney for Alexandre kept insisting on conflating Legal Impact for Chickens with ALDF. Is it kind of as if they, you know, you, you brought these cases before or something like that, like implying that all animal advocates are exactly the same thing.

I don't really have a question here. I just thought it was very noticeable that he thought, kind of, thought there were like 12 of us, and

[00:28:00] Alene Anello: Yeah.

[00:28:01] Mariann Sullivan: I mean, we do kind of all know each other, but we're really not all the same organization.

[00:28:06] Alene Anello: Yeah. I found it frustrating and our local council said it's a little bit of like, it doesn't feel good to be lumped in with other people and treated like you're all the same.

[00:28:16] Mariann Sullivan: Yeah.

[00:28:17] Alene Anello: I also felt like it was a learning opportunity or a good reminder that we shouldn't treat people like they're all the same.

Because I think in our movement, people can do the same to the industry. I hear people say like the industry is like this, or the ag industry is like that. And in reality there's the chicken, there's the poultry industry, and there's the beef industry, and they're very different. And within the poultry industry, there's broiler people who, um. I don't like the word broiler, but people who use chickens for meat and people who use chickens for eggs, and they're totally different and they don't agree with each other on things. And then within any industry, like within the broiler part of the industry, there's big companies and there's a few small companies.

And then when the big companies, there's like the CEOs and then there's the contract growers, and then there's the employees at slaughterhouses and they're all so different from each other. So it was a good reminder of this must be how people who work in agriculture feel when we talk about agriculture being like one person.

[00:29:17] Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, I am, I am totally guilty of that. I, I'm not sure that you have convinced me to stop, but, uh, but certainly when, especially when it comes to, I mean, with animal, just the whole like animal use, uh, there's a certain level of consistency, but you know, with worker issues like there can be very, very different situations.

There's a lot of different situations and it is important when the differences matter to recognize them and not lump everybody in together. I mean, not that it's really horrible to be lumped in with A LDF, but you know, it's just nice to recognize that we're, that we're, uh, that we're a, a, you know, a a a significant movement with, with different players.

We're not, we're not all exactly the same person.

[00:30:00] Alene Anello: I do think this case illustrates the distinctions between different people in animal agriculture because almost all of the evidence came from people who work in animal

[00:30:08] Mariann Sullivan: Oh

[00:30:09] Alene Anello: like, this is not right. Like I believe in using cows for milk, but I don't believe in cutting their teets off with a

[00:30:15] Mariann Sullivan: yeah.

[00:30:15] Alene Anello: rusty pocket knife.

[00:30:16] Mariann Sullivan: Yeah.

[00:30:17] Alene Anello: I believe in using cows for meat, but I think it's wrong for someone to sell a cow that they know is just gonna be euthanized and prolong that cow's suffering. Or speaking out like the Regenerative Organic Alliance speaking out. It really made me appreciate how much people within the industry are looking at each other and questioning each other's behavior and wanting to keep each other in line, but it can be very hard.

[00:30:40] Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, absolutely. No, that the you're, you're absolutely right. This case really does show that, and that kind of evidence is so valuable. I mean, to have all your evidence coming from vegan undercover operatives like. Not that they're not doing the most valuable work in the, in the world, they are, but it's really good to have evidence from people who are within the industry and just are really disturbed by some of the things they see.

So that's an excellent point. So if you're successful on the demur, as you like to call it in California, um, what happens next?

[00:31:10] Alene Anello: So then, well first of all, there's always the option that Alexandre could just say, okay, we will settle and agree to stop abusing animals.

[00:31:21] Mariann Sullivan: And, and like, would they have to say that or would it be a specific list of these particular practices that, that, or you, have you not decided yet how it would be settled?

[00:31:32] Alene Anello: It's hard to imagine how a settlement would happen without both parties to talking it through, but we would want, our ultimate outcome is we want to know that this bad stuff is gonna stop. So, whatever the end of the case would be, we won't give up until we know that the cows at Alexandre are not suffering this egregious, illegal cruelty anymore.

[00:31:54] Mariann Sullivan: So egregious illegal cruelty. That's what we're,

[00:31:57] Alene Anello: we wouldn't want

[00:31:58] Mariann Sullivan: I mean, you can't go, you, you can't like go for like eliminating cruelty whatsoever. 'cause let's face it, you know, there's some cruelty in animal agriculture. It is always a matter of drawing lines. But, there are specific things that you have noted that it would be great to see them stop doing

[00:32:12] Alene Anello: Yeah.

[00:32:13] Mariann Sullivan: Particularly horrific things.

[00:32:15] Alene Anello: and so, okay, assuming that we still can't see eye to eye.

[00:32:18] Mariann Sullivan: Right.

[00:32:19] Alene Anello: the next stage would be discovery. So at that point we would get to take a deposition of each of the individual defendants, different Alexandres. We would get to demand to do a site inspection so we can walk around and see the each of the farm locations, not just the part that's normally visible to the public, but we could demand to see parts that aren't normally visible. We can send written interrogatories where we make Alexandre officially answered questions for us, request for documents, all that kind of thing. So then we can expand the evidence that we have. We already have a lot of evidence of cruelty before we even filed this case, but we are entitled to if we survive a motion and dismiss to expand that with evidence provided directly by the defendants. And then after that, the next stage would be a motion for summary judgment. Where, well, that's optional, but either party could make a motion for summary judgment or we could both make those motions. So, most of your listeners know, but maybe not all.

That's a motion where you basically say, we should win the case and we don't even need to have a trial because look at all our evidence, there's no way we could lose at trial. So sometimes both parties in any given lawsuit feel very confident and they both file those motions. Um, so we'll have a briefing on likely on one or two motions for summary judgment and then, if the case could be resolved that way, and if not, then we would go to trial.

[00:33:45] Mariann Sullivan: Now, would the rules for discovery be governed by, and I don't know what the differences are in California. I know they are quite different in New York, uh, by rules governed in criminal cases or civil cases? Okay. So that could, should give you a pretty wide expansive possibilities of gathering some information.

At this point we're just waiting, uh, for the judge. Is there anything that I should have asked you that I haven't?

[00:34:10] Alene Anello: I don't think so. I really appreciate you asking us about this case in general, and we're not gonna give up until people treat animals the way that the law requires them to.

[00:34:21] Mariann Sullivan: Yeah, it's an incredibly important case because, I feel like in so many states, it's not just California. There have been various efforts by lawmakers, probably back when the cruelty laws were passed, or maybe even subsequent to that, to kind of give some kind of non-governmental entities the power to stop cruelty, like SPCAs or, you know, that's certainly, they're these semi-government, uh, or in other ways that individuals who aren't affiliated with s PCAs, they're able to bring complaints of some sort.

They vary from state to state. I mean, Will Lowry has done a lot of the work on uncovering a lot of these, but there was some sort of recognition that maybe there wasn't enough funding in government to really cover the expanse of animal cruelty or, and obviously for the really big reason that animals couldn't sue anybody on their own.

So they needed somebody to be able to stick up for them. And this recognition existed a long time ago, but the efforts that were made to create these, these very limited mechanisms, but real mechanisms of enforcement just haven't been used enough. Do you agree? I mean, is this an example of many other situations?

[00:35:22] Alene Anello: Yeah, like Legal Impact for Chickens' broad goal is to make companies recognize that animal cruelty is a liability. And within that broad goal, a big part of it is making people realize what animal cruelty is and that a lot of practices somebody might be doing and thinking they can get away with, might actually not be legal if you actually read the statute. And then another big goal is to encourage people to try to enforce the cruelty law. So we really want police and prosecutors to make more

[00:35:52] Mariann Sullivan: Absolutely.

[00:35:53] Alene Anello: arrests and citations and prosecutions, but we also want civil lawyers to bring more civil lawsuits. And I think that animal cruelty is actually very good for civil lawsuits for a couple reasons.

One is, this is a quote I am stealing from my former boss, Christopher Berry. He says. SPCAs are societies for prevention of cruelty to animals, not societies to punish somebody who is cruel to animals. So what we all care about is stopping cruelty. Animal advocates are not generally like very vindictive people. We don't feel happy when an abuser goes to prison, except that they're now stopped from committing more abuse. But we would be very happy if we could just get injunctions telling people to change their behavior. Like I don't want the Alexandres to be sad. I want them to have good lives. I just want the animals to have a good life too.

So, in the criminal law, it's very hard to actually stop someone from doing something. Mostly you just punish somebody.

[00:36:47] Mariann Sullivan: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:36:48] Alene Anello: And civil law is really good for getting an injunction to say, we don't want you to be punished. We just need you to stop this behavior. So that's one cool thing about civil law.

The other thing is, I think having nonprofits that are funded by donors, stand up against animal cruelty is very useful because we don't need to worry about trying to stop murder and rape and drug dealing and all the different things that police and prosecutors are trying to stop. I think they often feel like they're overwhelmed with crimes that constituents are beating down their doors about, and that they don't have time to get to crimes that are really concerning but that there's not as many people speaking up about. So I think that nonprofits are really special in that way.

[00:37:36] Mariann Sullivan: Yeah. And some of the nonprofits that have been set up to help animals and that do have this kind of power, they're overwhelmed with dog and cat issues with, I mean, they have so many, they also have so many obligations other than bringing lawsuits and, and going after cruelty. They actually have to care for all of these animals.

So yeah, to expand this universe of people who can try to enforce laws that already exist and that have been passed, that's all that anybody's trying to do is just enforce the law that the legislatures have passed, uh, is, is just so important. I think this is an incredibly important case.

I understand too that this isn't the only proceeding against Alexandre, though the other one is not something you're involved in. Can you just tell us a little bit about what that is?

[00:38:18] Alene Anello: Yes. So, after, I guess the last brief was filed and right before our oral argument, we saw a Google alert that Alexandre is also being sued for false advertising in a class action. And that's because as we began at the beginning of this call, Alexandre has a very strong brand. It puts a lot of effort into its branding to try to seem wholesome and ethical. And the horrible things that are happening on Alexandre Farms are not at all what a consumer is expecting when they're paying extra for something that they think is ethical. So my understanding is that's what the other lawsuit's about.

[00:38:52] Mariann Sullivan: Okay. Well, we'll like to keep an eye on that one too. All right. Well, that, I think that covers what we had to say about this case. But can you do a little bit of catching us up on what else is happening at Legal Impact for Chickens? Because it seems like you're growing by leaps and bounds.

[00:39:06] Alene Anello: We are, we now are a team of five.

[00:39:10] Mariann Sullivan: Wow,

[00:39:10] Alene Anello: Um, we just hired a new attorney who's name is Drew Gibbons, who's a former prosecutor. And, we still though, have more work than we can handle. When you were talking about how people that rescue dogs and cats, nonprofits rescue dogs and cats are drowning in all the dogs and cats they're trying to rescue.

And it's hard for 'em to find resources to also litigate, or stand up for farmed animals. I feel that we constantly are hearing about issues that we wish we could take on and we have to triage and figure out what we have the capacity

[00:39:43] Mariann Sullivan: Yeah.

[00:39:43] Alene Anello: to do. So, I think that anyone listening to this podcast who's interested in helping do civil litigation for animals or helping farmed animals in court, should definitely get involved.

There are a lot of lawsuits that could be brought that haven't been brought, and it's much more than we at LIC have the capacity to do, even though we're growing. It's like the more we grow, the more we have time to like look out into the world and discover new problems that we wish we had the capacity to fix.

So think that probably there could be a lot of people dedicated full-time to private civil enforcement of laws for farmed animals. And, it's like the number that that exists is not enough.

[00:40:21] Mariann Sullivan: Wow, that's very inspiring. And I'm not sure that's the way lawyers used to think that they didn't think there were that many options, but, you know, the options are starting to grow and this case is an important step in, in making that happen. So, I'm excited about it. I'm looking forward to hearing what happens.

And thanks so much for joining us today, Alene.

[00:40:40] Alene Anello: Thank you so much. It's a huge honor.