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Scaling Legal Impact for Chickens to make factory-farm cruelty a liability

$5,000raised
$90,000funding goal
$15,000valuation
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Please help scale Legal Impact for Chickens to make factory-farm cruelty a liability!

LIC sues companies and executives that abuse animals on factory farms. Since receiving a generous ACX grant in 2021, LIC has filed its first two lawsuits: the widely publicized Costco shareholder derivative case, Smith v. Vachris; and a cruelty suit against KFC-supplier Case Farms for carelessly trapping and crushing newborn chicks.

We also got the Rural King chain store to institute random animal-welfare audits for the chicks it sells, got a caterer to remove foie gras from its menu, got permission to file an amicus brief at the sentencing of a slaughterhouse, and more.

As a relatively new organization, LIC has already received a highly-sought-after recommendation from Animal Charity Evaluators (ACE), indicating that we have potential to do a great deal of good for animals.

LIC's work is hard because the legal system wasn’t built with animals in mind. But we also see glints of promise. Like successfully forcing Costco’s board to create a chicken-welfare committee to investigate our claims of neglect. Or showing that animal-welfare groups can weigh in to ask for a harsher punishment when an animal-abusing company gets sentenced for a crime—even if the crime itself wasn’t animal cruelty.

We’re developing new legal avenues which we hope will ultimately make pro-animal litigation so easy that companies realize they must clean up their act when it comes to animal welfare. We have already seen interest from other lawyers, law professors, and law students, for instance, in the duty-to-act-lawfully animal-neglect shareholder derivative strategy that LIC pioneered. That is, using a shareholder derivative suit to hold company executives accountable for violating their fiduciary duty to act lawfully when the executives make their company neglect animals. While the Costco case was dismissed on factual grounds, the judge seemed to accept our clients' contention that, if executives make a company commit illegal animal neglect, the executives are violating their fiduciary duty to act lawfully. We thus see our experience with that case as support for our thesis that shareholder derivative cases based on the duty to act lawfully are a promising avenue for future pro-animal litigation.

Now, LIC seeks to scale our work by taking on more lawsuits at once. And that’s important because LIC’s litigation strategy is all about shots on goal: Most pro-animal lawsuits fail. But the ones that win can go a long way toward improving animal welfare. For instance, a single chicken meat company may kill hundreds of millions, or even billions, of chickens per year. And successful suits can also light a pathway for future pro-animal suits to ultimately help America's 9 billion chickens who are slaughtered annually.

We will always be grateful to ACX and ACX readers for getting LIC started.

http://legalimpactforchickens.org

LIC seeks $90,000 to ensure that we have enough funds to hire specialist contract attorneys for all our outside counsel needs, in order to enable LIC to work on approximately five new and existing lawsuits over the course of the year. LIC currently has three full-time litigators on staff, as well as a full-time legal operations specialist. We handle the bulk of LIC’s litigation work, including developing new lawsuits, writing the first draft of all major briefs, and negotiating with opposing counsel. LIC also benefits from numerous volunteer attorneys. In addition, LIC also relies heavily on paid contract attorneys who fill specific one-off roles in our various lawsuits. For instance, in each lawsuit LIC brings, LIC must hire a local counsel who is barred in the state where LIC plans to litigate and familiar with the local courts. When LIC brings a lawsuit in a specialized area of law, such as shareholder derivative law, LIC also hires a contract attorney who specializes in that particular area and can advise us on it. And so on. LIC can do our best work on each case if we can afford to hire excellent contract attorneys to fill all the particular needs that come up in that case. The cost of contract attorneys for a given case varies greatly, depending on factors such as how specialized the area of law is, how long the case goes on, and whether we can find pro bono help. LIC estimates that, on average, we will tend to spend approximately $18,000 in contract attorney fees per case per year. Since we aim to work on approximately five new and existing cases in 2024, we expect to need about $90,000 for contract attorneys.

http://legalimpactforchickens.org

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Alene avatar

Alene Georgia Anello

about 1 month ago

Updates on all the exciting stuff that has happened at LIC lately:

  • Legal Impact for Chickens commissioned an undercover investigation of poultry giant Foster Farms. Foster Farms is the largest poultry producer in California. The investigation was released on October 7, 2024 by animal protection charity Animal Outlook (AO). The undercover investigator caught Foster Farms driving forklifts over chickens, throwing them, and kicking them. Animal cruelty is a crime. So AO has presented the video and legal analysis to the Fresno County District Attorney’s office and is requesting criminal animal cruelty charges. On October 11, 2024, the Fresno Bee reported: “Fresno County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Tony Botti said detectives launched an investigation recently and it remains an ongoing case.” Foster Farms also reportedly released a statement that, as a result of the LIC-sponsored investigation, Foster Farms had “‘implemented’” new animal-welfare procedures. These reportedly included companywide animal welfare training, creating a new chief animal welfare officer role and new animal welfare director roles, and “[i]ncreased” animal welfare audits and Professional Animal Auditor Certification Organization (PAACO) staff.

  • On September 30, 2024, Legal Impact for Chickens filed an animal-cruelty suit against Alexandre Family Farm for pouring salt into cows’ eyes, dragging disabled animals across concrete, starving cattle, and more. The well-known dairy has several thousand cattle and sells its milk at Whole Foods. But an April 2024 exposé by animal-welfare charity Farm Forward revealed “systemic deception, cruelty, and animal abuse” at Alexandre. Farm Forward put the exposé together with the help of rancher whistleblowers. LIC filed its complaint in Humboldt County Superior Court. LIC seeks an injunction to protect Alexandre’s cattle.

  • The food known as “foie gras” comes from dangerously force-feeding a duck or a goose. A duck foie gras producer will shove a tube down each ducks’s throat three times a day over nearly three weeks. This forces the duck to ingest so much food that his liver grows up to ten times its usual size. As a result, the liver reaches a diseased state, increasing the bird’s mortality risks. On August 10, 2023, LIC thus contacted a San Francisco caterer to demand that the company “permanently stop selling foie gras.” The caterer responded immediately, and agreed to remove this cruel dish from its menu! Then, on July 30, 2024, LIC sent a cease-and-desist letter to DC butcher shop Harvey’s Market on behalf of LIC’s client, Animal Outlook. The letter demanded that Harvey’s Market stop labeling its foie gras as “humanely raised.” But Harvey’s Market stated that it has no plans to change anything. So, on October 15, 2024, LIC filed a lawsuit against Harvey’s Market in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, on behalf of Animal Outlook. The complaint alleges that this type of misleading advertising violates the District of Columbia Consumer Protection Procedures Act.

  • On August 1, 2024, LIC filed the record in our Case Farms lawsuit. And on September 3, 2024, LIC filed its opening appellate brief. LIC’s brief explains: “[O]ur law declares Defendants’ animal cruelty unlawful. Our law . . . says how animals must be slaughtered—and boiling them alive is not a legal way to slaughter animals. 9 C.F.R. § 381.65; Treatment of Live Poultry Before Slaughter, 70 Fed. Reg. 56624-01, 56625 (Sept. 28, 2005). The law also prohibits abusing animals. Negligently killing or abusing an animal is criminal.” Since then, farming groups, veterinarians, and a North Carolina animal rescue have all weighed in to stand up for birds. The Northeast Organic Dairy Producers Alliance, The Cornucopia Institute, and Food Animal Concerns Trust moved together to submit an amicus brief. The farming groups’ brief states: “Defendants’ alleged conduct is not only unethical, but completely contrary to the professional standards of modern poultry farming.” Former North Carolina appellate judge Hon. Lucy Inman represents these three amici. North Carolina veterinarian Dr. Laura Cochrane, DVM, forensic veterinarian Dr. Martha Smith-Blackmore, DVM, and North Carolina nonprofit DEGA Mobile Veterinary Care moved together to submit a second amicus brief. The veterinarians’ brief states: “North Carolina takes animal cruelty seriously.” North Carolina appellate attorney Michael G. Schietzelt and colleague Luke Taylor represent the three veterinary amici. North Carolina animal rescue Beautiful Together also moved to submit an amicus brief. Beautiful Together’s brief states: “Legal Impact for Chicken’s complaint alleges shocking atrocities that, if committed against a dog or cat, would merit universal condemnation.” North Carolina appellate specialist Christopher S. Edwards represents Beautiful Together.

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Alene avatar
Progress update

Thank you so much to everyone who invested!!!!

Manifund says:

"Manifund auction for 'Scaling Legal Impact for Chickens to make factory-farm cruelty a liability' has resolved!"

"This project was successfully funded. It received $4.87K in funding. 97.3% of shares were sold at a valuation of $5K. The founder currently holds the other 2.66%, and 2.66% has been offered for sale at a valuation of $5K.

Not all of the shares you initially offered in the auction were sold, so we made a sell offer for the remaining 2.66% at a valuation of $5K on your behalf, which gives you the opportunity to raise more funds. You are able to delete that offer if you choose from your project page."

🥭

Alexander Rose

8 months ago

"Your bid of $60 at $500 was declined." Why? I was one of the first people to fund this project. Did all the people in the shareholder list fund more than $500?

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Jason avatar

Jason

8 months ago

@xl Based on offers that were submitted, the system only accepted those that specified a valuation of at least $10K. It sold each 0.6 percent of certs for each $60. Your offer of $60 for 12 percent of certs wasn't a good offer for the system to take -- pricing them there would have raised only $500 total.

I'm guessing someone would sell you $60 at the $10K valuation if you want to offer that.

(The whole valuation concept doesnt make much sense to me with this proposal.)

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Alene avatar

Thank you so much for your support, Alexander Rose! @xl . I'm sorry that that happened. We'd be super grateful if you'd be interested in joining our mailing list to simply keep in touch with LIC! https://www.legalimpactforchickens.org/#contact And thank you for everything you do.

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🐞

Alyssa Riceman

8 months ago

This seems like a very promising enterprise! Success already under your belt, a clear plan for scaling up further from here, pretty high potential yields should it succeed; overall I'm pretty impressed with / optimistic about your prospects here.

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Alene avatar

Thank you so much for your support, @Alyssa !!!!!

🐌

Harris Max

8 months ago

We are so excited that LIC is doing this important work standing up for those who cannot fight for their own rights. Thank you!

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Alene avatar

Thank you so much, Harris! We are so grateful to you and to Sage. Thank you for creating Sage. @vegavengers

🦑

Lynn Max

8 months ago

Thank you for the incredible work you are doing to help end cruelty to farmed animals. We need this so desperately and are so glad you are leading the way.

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Alene avatar

Thank you so much, Lynn! And thank you for everything you do for animals!! Also, Sage is the BEST. @sagedopes

sagemax avatar

Sage Max

8 months ago

LIC is doing groundbreaking work for farmed animals in the legal sphere. As far as I know, it is the only US nonprofit law firm focused exclusively on factory farmed animals.

As a new employee at the organization, I can say for sure that everyone here is highly motivated to do this work well and as efficiently as possible. These are incredibly impressive litigators who went to top schools and could be doing anything else, but they care deeply about making a better world for chickens and have dedicated their careers to that end. I know that Alene Anello, our captain, is constantly thinking about how we can do more and what will be the most streamlined approach.

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Alene avatar

OMGGGG Sage, we are SO Grateful to have you. You are a Godsend. Thank you for dedicating your life to fighting for animals. @sagemax

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guenael avatar

Guenael Strutt

8 months ago

I believe in the mission and think the strategy is effective. My goal as a grantor is to estimate how much the grant would be worth if the project it funds is successful. It would help to understand what this grant does that the current LIC funding doesn't – say you win one of the new or existing cases, and someone wishes to buy the grant as a result, how much of the success would be attributed to this grant specifically?

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Alene avatar

Dear Guenael, Thank you so much for everything you've already done for LIC, and for this great question. I want to give you a really thoughtful answer, so please give me a moment to formulate one. Will respond ASAP. Thank you so much, @guenael !

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Alene avatar

Hi again, @guenael ! Thank you so much again for helping us, and for sparking us to think through this.

The total amount LIC is trying to raise is $90,000. This is to cover the costs for one year's worth of contract attorney assistance for all of the lawsuits LIC works on over the course of the year, including lawsuits in development and existing lawsuits. We hope to be working on approximately 5 lawsuits over the course of this year, including our Case Farms appeal (https://www.legalimpactforchickens.org/case-farms) and other suits. We estimate that our entire budget for 2024 will be about $806,000. That includes operations costs, paying our staff litigators, etc. The $90,000 for contract attorneys is about 11% of that. Therefore, if we receive $90,000 from Manifund, then the Manifund investors will deserve credit for 11% of LIC's work in 2024. Since we expect to work on about five lawsuits over the course of the year, Manifund investors could get credit for 11% of 5 lawsuits. 11% X 5 is about half.

Therefore, we estimate that, if we raise the whole $90,000 through Manifund, then Manifund investors, as a whole, can have credit for about half of one lawsuit that LIC works on in 2024.

As for which lawsuit Manifund investors should get credit for half of: If we're allowed to set the terms, we'd like to say that the Manifund investors would get credit for half of whichever LIC lawsuit is most successful! But if we're not allowed to set the rules like that, maybe it would make most logical sense to just say that Manifund investors get credit for 11% of each of the approximately five cases LIC works on in 2024.

WDYT? Does this answer make sense? Am I missing something?

This impact market stuff is all new to us!

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guenael avatar

Guenael Strutt

8 months ago

Thank you for the thoughtful answer @Alene. There is no right way to think about this – the buyer of the certificate can use any heuristic they choose, but I wanted to get your thoughts in the event one reached out while looking to put a dollar value on a successful outcome. 11% @$500 is a per-lawsuit value of $4500, which sounds like an incredible deal (but maybe I'm thinking about this wrong?).

NoaNabeshima avatar

Noa Nabeshima

8 months ago

@Alene Is the amount of impact you intend to sell tied to the total amount you're valued at, so that if you're funded 10K at a valuation of 90K, you'll interpret this as selling 1/9 the impact of 90K instead of 1/9 the impact of 10K?

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Alene avatar

@NoaNabeshima Shoot, I am not sure. What do you think the right answer should be? And how do we know the amount we're valued at? Is that something we find out later?

🐶

Jacy Reese Anthis

8 months ago

  • Chickens are more than 90% of the over 30 billion farmed land-dwelling vertebrate animals and are almost exclusively factory farmed. Humanity should switch to animal-free chicken and egg products, but in the meantime, LIC-style welfare reforms seem among the most effective for reducing chicken suffering. On the other hand, the number of chickens is not so large when weighed against invertebrate and aquatic farmed animals.

  • LIC is a small, agile organization where I expect donations more cost-effectively address this than at the larger organizations with a wider variety of strategies that are bogged down by various bureaucratic and logistic challenges. On the other hand, overhead can be higher at small organizations if they have less streamlined processes.

  • Alene has an impressive track record is clearly motivated to address this issue in the most effective ways possible.

  • Most importantly, supporting cost-effective strategies to reduce factory farm suffering is a promising strategy towards moral circle expansion that will benefit all sentient beings in the long run (e.g., for the more numerous invertebrate populations), particularly by improving the outcomes of advanced AI technologies. Efforts like LIC that build the effective animal advocacy community are particularly promising.

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Alene avatar

Awwww @Jacy This is an amazing comment! Thank you so much for your support, and for buying at $500! I agree with you about the pros and cons, and I hope I can live up to your positive words in bullet point 3.

saulmunn avatar

Saul Munn

9 months ago

from a quick scan, i'm pretty confused about the theory of change. three questions that sorta get at my confusion:

  1. how do you compare the value of chickens to other nonhuman animals (e.g. lamb, fish, or shrimp)?

  2. how do you compare the value of the work you're doing for chickens compared to other work that's being done for chickens?

  3. what is the basket of values/ethics/ideals that a donor who would want to donate to you have?

(also, it would be helpful — easier to quickly scan, see which parts are relevant, etc — if you had used the common format that the other ACX grantees have been using.)

overall, though, i've heard really great things about LIC, and am quite excited about understanding more wrt the questions above!

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Alene avatar

Thank you so much for your questions and advice, @saulmunn!

  1. LIC doesn't have an official answer to how we'd compare the value of chickens to other nonhuman animals. But I can tell you my personal answer, as LIC's founder. My personal answer is that, as a utilitarian, I value beings based on their ability to suffer and to feel pleasure. And I just mentally treat all animals who can suffer (or feel pleasure) the same, since I don't trust anyone's attempt to calculate which animals are more or less sentient. I just kinda treat sentience as a binary in my mind, with the only grey area being that for some species, like perhaps certain insects, science might not yet be sure if they're sentient or not. But once science finds evidence indicating that an animal is probably sentient, in my mind, that animal matters equally to all other animals. So, for all the animals you listed (chickens, lambs, fish, and shrimp), I would count them all as equal in my mind, because I believe they are all sentient and I don't feel convinced that one is more sentient than the other. I realize perhaps that's not a very satisfying answer to you if you believe that sentience is non-binary. And I don't have any evidence to support my hypothesis that sentience IS binary—It just feels like the default assumption I should have until I learn there really are degrees of sentience. Once you assume all sentient animals are equally sentient, then focusing on chickens makes sense because (1) a huge number of them are killed for food (about 9 billion in the US each year—far more than the number of lambs), (2) they're kept in terrible conditions, and (3) our society and our courts may be at a place where they're ready to recognize the needs of chickens (sadly, I don't believe our courts are as ready to recognize the needs of fish nor shrimp, but I hope that our work for chickens helps speed the day when are courts are ready).

  2. As for the work we're doing: LIC believes that litigating for animals is a necessary component to ever getting companies to treat animals better. Companies don't follow laws if the laws aren't enforced. That said, many other things are also necessary for improving animal welfare. That includes increasing public awareness of animal cruelty, increasing public belief in the importance of animal welfare, and the passage of good laws. Each of those other things help LIC's work, and I believe LIC's work can contribute to some of these. So it is hard for me to compare the value of LIC's work with the value of other ways of working for animal welfare because I believe they're all necessary and ideally should be used in tandem. Again, sorry for the dissatisfying answer.

  3. LIC's donors are diverse. I would say they generally fall into these categories: (1) effective altruists, (2) animal protection advocates (Which themselves are a diverse group with various views), (3) lawyers concerned with enforcement of the law, and (4) people who have a strong personal connection to chickens (e.g. people who live with chickens).

    Thank you so much for your support, Saul!!

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Alene avatar

Please excuse typo. I meant "when OUR courts are ready."
@Alene

saulmunn avatar

Saul Munn

8 months ago

@Alene thanks for the responses! i really appreciate your taking the time to write back :)

  1. gotcha. this still doesn't totally make sense to me — i feel confused why "work to help support chickens" is more cost-effective than "work to help {shrimp, catfish, salmon, etc}." to highlight:

    Once you assume all sentient animals are equally sentient, then focusing on chickens makes sense because (1) a huge number of them are killed for food (about 9 billion in the US each year—far more than the number of lambs), (2) they're kept in terrible conditions, and (3) our society and our courts may be at a place where they're ready to recognize the needs of chickens (sadly, I don't believe our courts are as ready to recognize the needs of fish nor shrimp, but I hope that our work for chickens helps speed the day when are courts are ready).

    i don't think this follows.

    1. agreed that more chickens are killed for food per year than lambs... but many more orders of magnitude of shrimp are killed per year than chicken.

    2. agreed.

    3. agreed, and i see this as the strongest case for the work that you're doing — in my view, the majority of the impact that you're likely to have comes from the tail chance of leading the charge on a new legal perspective on animals, rather than object-level improvements for the lives of chickens. i'd be quite interested to hear your takes here — i'm sure you're much more knowledgeable on this than i am!

    i think i model LIC's path to impact as "improve our legal structure's ability to handle animal welfare problems." does that make sense to you, or am i off in some way?

  2. "it is hard for me to compare the value of LIC's work with the value of other ways of working for animal welfare because I believe they're all necessary and ideally should be used in tandem"

    soft disagree. i think i'd be quite interested to understand how the LIC's work compares with other potentially highly-impact charities in the animal welfare space, but i can understand why this might be difficult.

  3. thanks for clarifying!

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Alene avatar

@saulmunn Hi Saul! Thank you for your engagement and for all your interest in LIC! Yes I agree many more shrimp are killed per year than chickens, and the shrimp are treated horribly. It's very concerning and I definitely would want to advocate for them if I could see a good route to do so through the legal system (since that's the route I'm equipped to take). Shrimp deserve to be treated better. As for the benefit to LIC's work, we do see the chance to improve the lives of billions of chickens as a huge benefit in and of itself.