(Beth Clifton collage)
Massachusetts federal judge upholds Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act
BOSTON––U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris had only been the likely Democratic candidate for president in the November 2024 election for less than 24 hours when her pro-animal legacy as California attorney general from 2010 to 2016 provided the key precedent in a ruling against the pig industry by U.S. District Judge William Young, in Boston, Massachusetts.
Young on July 22, 2024 cited U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris’ 2012 signature victory in National Meat Association v. Harris, Attorney General of California seven times in his 19-page verdict upholding the Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act.
(Beth Clifton photo)
Verdict agrees with 77% of Massachusetts voters
The Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act, Question 3 on the November 2016 Massachusetts ballot, was approved by 77% of the voters, winning in 348 of 351 municipal voting districts.
The Massachusetts act is usually identified, for short, as simply “Question 3.”
Plaintiffs including pig producers Triumph Foods, Christian Farms Midwest, the Hanor Company of Wisconsin, New Fashion Pork, Eichelberger Farms, and the Allied Producers Cooperative contended that the Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act improperly supersedes the Federal Meat Inspection Act.
Kamala Harris.
(Beth Clifton collage)
Harris defeated the same meat industry argument
This is the same argument that the National Meat Association used in the precedent-setting Harris case, unsuccessfully attempting to overturn California Proposition 2.
Proposition 2, including similar requirements for raising pigs, was approved by California voters in 2008, reinforced by Proposition 12 in 2018.
Proposition 12 was on May 11, 2023 upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 5-4 split decision, which left several key legal issues unresolved, giving rise to further state-level litigation.
(See Supreme Court split verdict on California pig law sets up another round.)
(Beth Clifton collage)
1906 law does not supersede 2016 initiative
In the Massachusetts care, “The pork producers argued that the Federal Meat Inspection Act of 1906 preempted the state’s law because it created additional, different requirements on how pigs are to be handled than the federal law provided,” summarized Reuters reporter Nate Raymond.
“But Young said the Massachusetts law does no more than ban the sale of non-compliant pork meat and does not regulate how a slaughterhouse itself operates.
“He said all a slaughterhouse needs to be able to do to sell pork in Massachusetts under the state’s Prevention of Cruelty to Farm Animals Act is be able to identify if the meat originated from a legally compliant pig.”
(Beth Clifton collage)
Federal & state laws have different purposes
The Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act also outlawed selling veal and eggs in Massachusetts from calves and hens “whose confinement failed to meet certain minimum space requirements,” Raymond summarized, but these requirements were not at issue in the case brought before Judge Young.
The Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act, explained Judge Young, “seeks to prevent the sale of pork raised in inhumane conditions, without concern for whether that meat is safe to eat,” the sole concern of the Federal Meat Inspection Act of 1906.
“In other words,” Judge Young elaborated, “an otherwise healthy pork product could be noncompliant with the Act, not because it is considered unhealthy, but because the policy preferences of the Massachusetts voters demand it not be eligible for sale.”
(Beth Clifton collage)
“Voters said no to extreme confinement”
Animal Wellness Action and Center for a Humane Economy president Wayne Pacelle, as then-president of the Humane Society of the U.S. helped to push both the Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act and the California ballot initiative it was based upon to passage.
Commented Pacelle, “Last May, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected an industry attempt to short-circuit California’s Proposition 12, which was modeled after Question 3 in Massachusetts.
“Massachusetts voters said no to extreme confinement in a landslide vote nearly eight years ago, and the federal courts have again upheld their right to reject this form of institutionalized cruelty to animals. Commonwealth voters don’t want to purchase meat from animals immobilized in cages. What part of this anti-cruelty decision-making by its consumers does the pork industry not understand?”
(Beth Clifton photo)
Same judge previously struck down part of the Massachusetts law
Judge Young on February 8, 2024 ruled in favor of essentially the same coalition of pig producers in a previous challenge to the constitutionality of Question 3.
In that decision, reported Nathan Owens for the agribusiness periodical AgricultureDive.com, Judge Young struck down “the law’s ‘slaughterhouse exception,’ which allows certain processors to directly sell non-compliant pork to consumers.”
Judge Young, however, allowed the rest of the Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty to Farm Animals Act to stand, disappointing the pig industry coalition, who had hoped Young would find the entire act unconstitutional.
Merritt & Beth Clifton with Henry the rooster.
Partially offsetting the Massachusetts federal court verdict, National Hog Farmer reported on June 22, 2024 that the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources has ruled in response to National Pork Producers Council lobbying that the Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act “does not cover ground or otherwise comminuted pork (pork that has been diced, chopped, or cut into ‘smaller’ pieces) since it is no longer whole pork meat.”
This ruling will pertain primarily to the sale of pork sausages.
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The post Kamala-won precedent for pigs wins again in Massachusetts federal court appeared first on Animals 24-7.
