Justices Take up California Law on Livestock Welfare

California's law banning the slaughter of animals that can't walk, enacted in 2008 after a gruesome undercover video showed lame cows being waterboarded and jabbed with forklifts at a meat plant in San Bernardino County, will come before the Supreme Court today.

The law bans the sale, receipt or slaughter of any downed livestock and requires them to be immediately euthanized. It also prohibits dragging animals or pushing them with heavy equipment, requiring that they be moved on a sling or a sled. The law has not taken effect because the National Meat Association, based in Oakland, won an injunction in 2009.

Meat packers and the Obama administration contend that California has no right to enforce humane treatment of farm animals - in this case pigs - because the federal government has sole authority over slaughterhouses and protects animals under a law Congress passed in 1958.

"This is a case of great consequence for states and their authority to take aggressive action to stop animal cruelty," said Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society of the United States. "Congress is in the grip of the agri-business lobby, and if we have to wait until Congress acts, we'll be waiting for a very long time to bring relief to these animals and to secure the food supply for the health and well-being of consumers."

The Humane Society filmed the video at the Westland/Hallmark plant in Chino, causing a national uproar and investigation that led to the recall of 143 million pounds of beef, the largest in U.S. history, and the convictions of two workers for animal cruelty.

The Humane Society and other animal rights groups as well as 12 other state attorneys general are siding with California in National Meat Association vs. Harris. The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments today. The National Meat Association is backed by other industry groups and the Obama administration.

The meat industry contends that requiring pigs that can't walk to be immediately euthanized is unnecessary.

So-called downed cattle have been banned from the food supply by federal regulation since 2009, partly as a result of the Westland scandal. But federal law permits downed pigs to enter the food supply if they pass inspection. A cow's inability to walk can be a symptom of mad cowdisease, a fatal brain infection that can spread to humans. An outbreak in the United Kingdom killed at least 171 people and led to the slaughter of 4.4 million cattle.

But unlike cattle, pigs routinely lie down, meat industry officials said, especially when fatigued, and killing them the instant they do so would lead to the waste of millions of pounds of perfectly good pork.

"If you have a cow that's sitting down, it's a sure sign that something's up because it's not normal," said Jeremy Russell, spokesman for the National Meat Association. "Cows rest standing up, so you know you have to have a vet take a look at them to see if maybe they are hurt or sick. ...

"If a pig is sitting down it's not the same," Russell said. "A pig might refuse to get up just because it's tired."

Pig fatigue, known as porcine stress syndrome, is a genetic disorder aggravated by long-distance travel on crowded trucks, extreme temperatures, rough handling and other stresses. Carolyn Stull, a veterinarian and animal welfare specialist at UC Davis, said about 3 percent of pigs become unable to walk, and some of them will get up if rested.

But a hog weighing 270 pounds, or a sow at 1,200 pounds, is extremely difficult to move without causing the animal further discomfort, Stull said. Killing such animals immediately, as the California law requires, she said, "is probably in the best interest of the animal."

Animal welfare is traditionally a state domain, and many states ban slaughtering cats, dogs and horses for human food.

The U.S. District Court in Fresno, in its opinion blocking the California law, said the fact that states can ban the slaughter of cats and dogs does not mean they can regulate the slaughter of other species. "A pig is a pig," whether it is walking or not, the court held.

"Hogwash," wrote Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Chief Judge Alex Kozinski for a unanimous three-judge panel reversing the lower court. He wrote that a federal law on slaughterhouses does not prevent states from limiting the kinds of animal slaughtered.

"Federal law may establish fireworks safety standards, but that doesn't preclude states from banning fireworks," he wrote. Likewise, federal standards on slaughter do not stop states from banning certain kinds of animals from slaughter altogether, Kozinski said.