SPCA cruelty enforcement case clears another hurdle

By alene @ 2025-09-12T02:15 (+42)

Hi EAs! 

We posted earlier about Legal Impact for Chickens (LIC) proving in court that SPCAs can sue to stop agricultural cruelty. LIC had survived a demurrer in our lawsuit against well-known dairy Alexandre Family Farm. In a victory for farmed animals, the Humboldt County Superior Court had acknowledged LIC’s power, as a California society for the prevention of cruelty to animals (SPCA), to prevent animal cruelty through civil litigation.

Since then, Alexandre petitioned the California Court of Appeal for a writ of mandate against the Humboldt County Superior Court itself. Alexandre asked the appellate court to intervene in the LIC v. Alexandre lawsuit by ordering the Superior Court to change its mind and dismiss the case after all. This appeared to be an attempt to avoid litigation on the question of whether Alexandre is, in fact, committing illegal animal cruelty.

So LIC retained a powerful team of California appellate lawyers: Robert Roth, Susan Horst, M.C. Sungaila, and Melanie Gold of the Complex Appellate Litigation Group (CALG). Susan previously served as the writ attorney for the First Appellate District, and is one of the only practicing attorneys in California to have devoted virtually her entire career to appellate writs. (We found CALG because Robert was a LIC donor, and Robert found LIC because of Animal Charity Evaluators!!)

Happily, today, the California Court of Appeal summarily denied Alexandre’s writ petition! The case will now return to Humboldt County Superior Court to determine whether Alexandre illegally neglects and abuses its cattle. 

Thank you to ACE and all the EAs who are helping to fight cruelty.

Sincerely,

Alene