Brooks Law Digest: Undercover Investigations

Ontario has passed Bill 156, the Security from Trespass and Protecting Food Safety Act, which could make it illegal for employee whistleblowers to expose animal abuse and other violations on animal farming operations.

A North Carolina federal judge has ruled that several provisions of North Carolina’s ag-gag law violate the First Amendment. The lawsuit was brought by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Center for Food Safety, Animal Legal Defense Fund, Farm Sanctuary, Food & Water Watch, Government Accountability Project, Farm Forward, and American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Canadian organization Animal Justice has filed a complaint with the Competition Bureau of Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, alleging that King Cole Ducks’ advertisement of its products as humane is misleading. The complaint follows a live rescue effort conducted at the company in February.

The United States District Court for the State of Kansas has issued an injunction prohibiting the state from enforcing its ag-gag law, ensuring that the court’s January ruling that the law is unconstitutional is applicable to all.

Groups challenging Arkansas’ ag-gag law as unconstitutional have appealed the dismissal of their suit to the Eighth Circuit. The dismissal in February was based on the court’s finding that plaintiffs failed to adequately allege Article III standing.

Drug researcher Charles River has been sued by a company who claims its trade secrets were revealed in an undercover expose of the drug researcher by the Humane Society of the United States posted on YouTube. The company claims it hired Charles River because it specialized in protecting sensitive information and claims fraud, violation of the Federal Defend Trade Secrets Act, negligence, breach of contract, unjust enrichment, and violation of state trade secret laws.

Alabama Senate Bill 196, if enacted, would give exclusive jurisdiction over all animal enterprises in the state to the Commissioner of Agriculture and Industry, ban any municipality or jurisdiction within the state from prohibiting (outright or via financial deterrents) animal enterprise, and criminalize the making of any report “clearly lacking any basis in fact or law” of animal cruelty against an animal enterprise. The bill would also discourage any entity holding an impounded animal from sterilizing the animal by making that entity liable for “the value of the animal and three times  the projected revenue over the reasonably expected life” of the animal.

Iowa Senate Bill 2388, if enacted, would prohibit any county or city in the state from enacting legislation that regulates any animal enterprise, including zoos, circuses, and any operation that uses animals for purposes such as entertainment or transportation.

Rich Hardy, a former undercover investigator in for over two decades, has published a new book entitled Not As Nature Intended.

The United States District Court for the District of Kansas ruled that the state’s ag-gag law violated the First Amendment by banning undercover investigations at factory farms and slaughterhouses. The law was the oldest of its kind in the country, dating to 1990. This is the fifth ag-gag law to be struck down in the country.