Court narrows meat industry lawsuit over California’s animal welfare law 

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A US district judge this week allowed one argument in a meatpacking company’s lawsuit against California over the state’s animal welfare law to proceed, while dismissing other aspects of the company’s argument. 

The ruling preserves a narrow path for the meat industry to challenge the law, but animal rights groups expressed optimism over the judge’s rejection of certain arguments. 

The US District Court for the Central District of California ruled on Tuesday that Triumph Foods, a large meatpacking company based in Missouri, could proceed with its challenge to California’s Proposition 12 over allegations that the law violates the federal Commerce Clause. Proposition 12, passed in 2018, requires that hogs, calves and chickens that are on confined farms or sold in the state are raised with adequate room to turn around, lie down and extend their limbs. In the argument allowed to proceed, Triumph Foods alleges that the law allows for some sales of non-compliant meat to be sold at federally inspected California slaughterhouses, which violates the Constitution’s Commerce Clause and puts out of state slaughterhouses at a market disadvantage. 

Triumph Foods said this has, in part, led to a “sharp decline in pork volume sales in California and a 2-3% decline in California’s share of national fresh pork sales.” 

The defendants — including state Attorney General Rob Bonta — have two weeks to file an answer against the Commerce Clause claim. In their initial filing they argued that Triumph Foods had failed to show the existence of any sales of non-compliant meat in California. 

Since the law passed, several meat industry groups have challenged it, along with a similar rule in Massachusetts known as Question 3. They argue such state laws increase consumer costs and hurt farmers. Earlier this month the US Supreme Court denied a separate petition from Triumph Foods in which the company asked the high court to rule on whether federal law preempts the rules imposed under Massachusetts’ Question 3.

Public health, animal rights and environmental groups have long defended Proposition 12 as offering basic protections for farm animals, and that this is a states’ rights issue. Ralph Henry, senior director of litigation at Humane World for Animals, an intervenor in the California case, was optimistic about the district court’s ruling this week. 

“We’re basically down to litigating one inconsequential exception in the law and, even if that exception were to go away, it would have minimal effect and would not undermine the intent and value of the statute,” Henry said. 

Henry said the remaining argument that the judge said can move forward applies to a provision that non-compliant pork processed at a federally inspected slaughterhouse could be sold from that slaughterhouse. “But if you’re a restaurant buying that non-compliant pork or a distributor buying that non-compliant pork, you can’t further sell it to anybody,” he said, adding that the plaintiffs have not identified that any such sales have happened.

“This is an animal welfare and public health measure … and so no aspect of the law, even this one narrow provision about it not applying to sales that might happen at less than three dozen federally inspected slaughterhouses in California, undermines those animal welfare and public health values,” Henry said. 

Triumph Foods did not return requests for comment on the case. 

Farm Bill implications 

The California ruling this week comes as the future of Proposition 12 has featured prominently in ongoing Farm Bill discussions in Congress. The Farm Bill is a massive piece of legislation renewed roughly every five years that guides the federal government’s food and farm policy.

The House draft version of the Farm Bill, released in May, contained a provision commonly referred to as the “Save Our Bacon Act” that specifically targeted Proposition 12 and would bar state or local governments from having protections for animals at farms or those sold within the state that differ from other states’ rules.

 “Producers of covered livestock have a federal right to raise and market their covered livestock in interstate commerce,” the House Farm Bill draft reads.

The Senate draft, however, did not contain such a provision. The Senate is expected to mark up the bill prior to its August recess.

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