Cases

We bring lawsuits in collaboration and alignment with allies across movement sectors to dismantle corporate consolidation of power in the meat industry.

Our cases seek to hold bad actors accountable, and empower those harmed by Big Ag, from meatpacking workers put at risk of contracting COVID-19 by their employers, to environmental justice communities subjected to land, air, and water contamination from factory-sized operations.

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November 9, 2023

Ag-Gag Litigation

A just, healthy, and thriving food system requires transparency. Public Justice engages in litigation to strike down the Ag-Gag laws that penalize whistleblowers who expose the truth about the factory farm system.
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November 9, 2023

North Carolina Ag-Gag

FarmSTAND (formerly the Food Project at Public Justice) is lead counsel on behalf of a coalition of public interest groups in a constitutional challenge to North Carolina’s “Anti-Sunshine” law—a statute that, like Ag-Gag laws, allows employers and property owners to sue undercover investigators who wish...
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October 30, 2023

Deep Dive: Hormel

Hormel wants you to make the “Natural Choice.” Documents we’ve made public reveal how that is anything but.
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October 30, 2023

Yakima Valley Dairy Cases

In October 2012, the Center for Food Safety and the Community Association for Restoration of the Environment (CARE) warned four major Yakima Valley (Wash.) factory farms that they would take them to federal court unless the farms stopped contaminating local drinking water supplies with runoff from their dairy operations...
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October 30, 2023

Country-of-Origin Labeling (R-CALF USA v. USDA)

FarmSTAND (formerly the Food Project at Public Justice) served as lead counsel representing the nation’s largest organization of independent cattle producers, R-CALF USA, and the Cattle Producers of Washington, in a suit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The suit alleged that USDA regulations enacted...
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October 30, 2023

Fact Sheets

Find documents and resources produced by the FarmSTAND, as well as other organizations fighting for communities negatively impacted by industrial animal agriculture.
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October 30, 2023

Iowa Public Trust Doctrine (Iowa CCI & FWW v. State of Iowa)

FarmSTAND (formerly the Food Project at Public Justice), Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, and Food & Water Watch filed a lawsuit against the State of Iowa claiming that the state has violated its obligation to protect the Raccoon River for the use and benefit of...
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October 30, 2023

Idaho Ag-Gag

In recent years, more and more state legislatures have – at the urging of lobbyists representing factory farm operations and industrial food producers – taken up “Ag Gag” laws that shroud mega-farms in secrecy and make holding them accountable for pollution, unsafe working conditions and...
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October 30, 2023

Morris v. Tyson

FarmSTAND (formerly the Food Project at Public Justice) represents a mass action of poultry growers in Western Kentucky who raise poultry for Tyson, the nation’s largest poultry company. Tyson acts as an “integrator,” controlling all of the inputs used by its poultry growers—such as the...
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October 30, 2023

Western Watershed Project et al v. Peter Michael

This case is a federal constitutional challenge to two newly enacted Wyoming statutes (the “Data Laws”) that are designed to prevent the public from gathering “resource data” on public or private “open land” in the State of Wyoming. See W.S. 6-3-414 (criminal statute) and W.S....
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October 30, 2023

Beef Checkoff (R-CALF USA v. Perdue)

We are lead counsel on behalf of the nation’s largest organization of independent cattle producers, R-CALF USA, in a suit raising a First Amendment challenge to the administration of the Beef Checkoff program in Montana. In Montana, ranchers have to pay a $1 tax per...
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October 30, 2023

Utah Ag-gag (Animal Legal Defense Fund v. Herbert)

In a victory for transparency in the food system, FarmSTAND (formerly the Food Project at Public Justice) successfully challenged a Utah statute that criminalized whistleblowing in the animal agricultural industry—in particular, slaughterhouses, meat processing plants, and factory farms. The law at issue—enacted by the state...
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