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.

Thank you so much to Marisa! She designed a social media packet for LIC to share with influencers to get the word out, and she compiled a list of influencers for us to use! She is awesome.

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."

@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?

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.

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!

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 !

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

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

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

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

@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.

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.

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

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!!